In Montreal, the Minnesota Wild’s Mikael Granlund scored at 6:58 of the third period for the only goal of the game as the Wild defeated the Canadiens, 1-0.
It was the only goal and the only point in the game as the goal was scored unassisted.
Devan Dubnyk backed up the goal with 32 saves.
“It’s nice to get,” Dubnyk said. “It’s kind of weird that it’s been this long. I feel like there’s been probably four or five games that felt like it was going to be and never happened. So shutouts are always nice to get. It’s just winning’s important and they’re extra special when it’s 1-0 because you know you really needed it to be a shutout.”
The Wild improved to 21-17-3 and have won nine straight over the Habs.
“It seems like some teams have other teams’ number, for whatever reason,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “My whole tenure (with the) Anaheim (Ducks) we never lost at home to (the) Calgary (Flames). So every team has somebody that they match up well against, I guess.”
The Canadiens dropped to 22-16-5/
“It’s hard to put your finger on it,” Brendan Gallagher said. “Obviously a good goalie, they defend well, but you always believe that there’s a solution. You always believe that there’s a way to get pucks past and you’ve just got to outcompete everyone and that includes the goaltender and tonight he outworked us.”
Granlund scored after picking off a bad backhand pass from Jeff Petry in the right corner in the Habs defensive zone.
“It was just a mistake, I should have used the boards,” Petry said. “I thought that I saw where Mike (Reilly) was and put it right in the middle and I should have just sucked the forecheck in a little more and used an indirect instead of trying to make a direct pass.”
[WATCH: All Wild vs. Canadiens highlights]
Carey Price made 24 saves in the loss.
“I think teams are doing a good (job) of boxing us out. I think we just need to get hungry around the net. And it always seems to be the same recipe, just get pucks towards the net and jam them in,” Price said.
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