In Sunrise, Friday night, kicked off a three games-in-four nights stretch with a 5-3 win over the Florida Panthers.
Antti Niemi made 23 saves in his first start since early December.
His last action was a 7-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
Jonathan Drouin had a goal and assist in win over Panthers – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
“It’s been a long time sitting on that game even if I didn’t feel that bad about that game,” Niemi said. “But, yeah, obviously I’ve been waiting to get back to get a W. I felt pretty good in practice. I think that’s the main thing, finding your game in there. So it wasn’t that bad, but after a tough game like that, it’s been a long time.”
Tomas Tatar broke a seven-game scoreless streak with two strikes in the win.
“I never really thought it was out (of track),” Tatar said. “We were winning. It’s a team effort every night, and it doesn’t really matter who’s going to score, who’s going to produce the most. I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
Artturi Lehkonen and Nicolas Deslauriers also scored for the Habs.
Henrik Borgstrom, Denis Malgin and Keith Yandle scored for the Panthers.
“It was not the prettiest game from both teams,” Florida forward Mike Hoffman said. “It was a game of mistakes and we made a little bit more than they did.”
Florida dropped to 15-15-6.
“They came out hard in the third,” Huberdeau said. “We had some chances at the end, but I guess there was no need to be down two goals. We’ve got to be better defensively. We let in four goals. We could have tied it at the end. Hit the post, but that’s part of it.”
Jonathan Drouin added an empty-net goal to close out the scoring.
“I think it was important for us to have a good start,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. “There was a big importance on both sides to this game, and we needed to have a good start, especially on the road.”
[WATCH: All Canadiens vs. Panthers highlights]
Roberto Luongo made 23 saves in the loss.
“I’d like to say it was a bad team start, but I think a couple of individuals started bad and that [hurt] the rest of us. I’d love to say our team wasn’t ready, but I don’t know if that’s the case. A couple of guys weren’t ready to play and that cost us,” Panthers head coach Bob Boughner said after the game.
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