In Columbus, a scoreless game through two periods broke open in the third period on Wednesday between the Blue Jackets and visiting Montreal Canadiens.
Mathieu Olivier put the Blue Jackets up, 1-0 with 68 seconds of fresh ice used in the third period.
That lead did not last long, as Arber Xhekaj and David Savard scored 57 seconds apart to erase the advantage and give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead.
“Obviously, you have to be happy with the defensive effort after last night,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “I’m happy with the mindset we had tonight. Simplified it a bit. We played a smart road game and not beat ourselves early to get through the first five or six minutes, because I feel the last two or three games that’s put us behind the eight ball.”
Sam Montembeault made 30 saves in the Habs win.
“Every game I just tried to get pucks through,” Xhekaj said. “Those floaters have been working good for me, so I’ve got to just keep it up.”
Montreal improved to 10-8-1.
“It’s huge,” Montreal forward Kirby Dach said. “[Montembeault] has been great for us all year every time he’s been in the net. He gives us a lot of confidence. He makes great saves all the time, timely saves. That’s all you can ask.”
Columbus dropped to 7-11-1.
“I think [Blue Jackets goalie Joonas Korpisalo] was solid. Two goals, (and) not much he can do on both goals,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. “The first period I thought we could have generated more. We got a little bit cute. We’re stopping in place and … there’s two or three times where we have odd-man situations and we don’t get anything out of it. It would have been nice to get something.
“They got two good bounces. One ran up their stick, one off a skate. Got on our heels a bit. It was a pretty solid game all the way through. It’s too bad because we were playing a heck of a game. We weren’t giving up much at all. We had some good looks ourselves.”
Sean Monahan added an empty-net goal with just under two minutes left in the game for the 3-1 final.
Korpisalo made 26 saves in the Columbus loss.
“Two goals inside a minute, you never want that happening,” Korpisalo said. “Early in the game we played really well. It [stinks].”
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