In Montreal, Carey Price made 33 saves to help the Canadiens defeat the visiting Florida Panthers, 6-1.
The Habs are 4-0-1 in their five matches.
Carey Price got the win for Montreal to keep pace in race – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“We’ve got a point in the last five (games), it’s huge right now,” Andrew Shaw said. “It just shows that we’re a character team. We’re going to work hard, compete, and we’re going to earn our own spot in the playoffs and not rely on someone winning or losing.”
Tomas Tater struck twice for the Habs in the win.
“You’re checking the scores, obviously, I mean just to see how the results are,” Tatar said. “At the end of the day, it’s all in your hands and you depend on your own destiny. So we just have to win the games that we have to.”
The loss, combined with the Columbus Blue Jackets’ win, eliminated the Panthers from the playoff race.
The dropped to 33-32-12.
“It’s just not paying attention to our system, it’s getting away from our system,” Florida forward Vincent Trocheck said. “Somebody is trying to do someone else’s job, you’re duplicating on guys, and whenever you duplicate, obviously someone’s going to be open. In the NHL, they’re going to find that open guy, and they did, especially in the first, and that’s what leads to goals-against.
“And it seems like we get down two goals, just like the last couple games, and we let off the gas, kind of just quit. It’s embarrassing, it’s extremely embarrassing. I mean, every single guy in here should be embarrassed the last three games.”
Brett Kulak, Artturi Lehkonen, Phillip Danault, and Max Domi scored single markers for Montreal.
“Carey, he stands tall for us again,” Tatar said. “In certain moments, he made those big saves, gave us the confidence. I think we played good. We were in the offensive zone, we were getting a lot of chances.”
Frank Vatrano scored for the Panthers after the Canadiens had a 5-0 lead.
[WATCH: All Panthers vs. Canadiens highlights]
James Reimer was given the hook in the first period after making six saves and yielding three goals.
Sam Montembeault relieved Bernier and made 15 saves.
“Well it’s not a lot of fun right now, I don’t think the players are having a lot of fun. Again, it’s another start by us where we’re, you know, I liked our start,” Panthers head coach Bob Boughner said. ” Our first seven, eight minutes, we came out with energy and we were physical, there’s some altercations, guys were into it. We had a lot of chances in the first period. It just seemed you make mistake, it’s in the back of your net. We’ve got to pull our goalie, it’s three goals on nine shots, and here we go again, kind of thing.”
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