Jets grounded in Montreal, 4-1

In Montreal, Evgenii Dadonov  hit for a double in the second period on Tuesday to help lead the Canadiens to a 4-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets.

Kyle Connor had staked the Jets to a 1-0 lad in the middle frame before Dadonov tied it with his first.

“I think today was a really big game for us, especially after back to back on the road,” Dadonov said.

Sam Montembeault made 25 saves in the Canadiens in win.

Montreal moved to 19-23-3.

“We just beat two of the best teams in the League,” said Montembeault. “So it just shows that when we play for 60 minutes and we play our kind of hockey that we can compete with anybody.”

Mike Hoffman scored in the second to give the Habs a 2-1 lead, and Dadonov  sent the game to the third period with the Canadiens up, 3-1.

“I think the biggest part was we didn’t spend a lot of time in our zone,” Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson said. “It didn’t seem like there were any long shifts where they really sustained pressure against us and [were] generating a lot of chances. So that’s a great way to play when you’re kind of cutting those down and going on offense with energy and possession.”

The Jets dropped to 29-15-1.

“We weren’t skating,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “Our legs weren’t going, our compete wasn’t good, our execution was way off. So there are very few games that we’re going to walk out of a rink and say that we didn’t deserve to win, but that’s certainly one tonight.

“We didn’t deserve to win that game. We were outplayed. We were behind them all night, made it very easy for them to play their game. So when the compete isn’t there, and the legs aren’t there and the execution isn’t there, then you look bad. We looked bad.”

Josh Anderson scored for the Habs at 4:19 of the third period for the 4-1 final.

Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves in the Jets loss.

“We weren’t able to connect on a lot of plays,” Connor said. “We were kind of disjointed throughout the whole ice, all three zones, not one zone in particular. They were able to counter on us pretty good, catch us on some bad changes. We just weren’t taking care of each other tonight.”