In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers built a 6-3 into the third period and then had to hold off the Montreal Canadiens who closed the gap to 6-5 before running out of goals.
Jonathan Huberdeau collected four points in the win with two goals.
“[Huberdeau] was special tonight,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “He had several nice looks, great plays. He had the puck on his stick a lot. I thought that line played well together.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 38 saves in the win.
Max Domi and Jeff Petry scored for the Habs.
“You can’t be playing pond hockey in this league and expect to come out and win hockey games,” Canadiens head coach Claude Julien said. “You score nine goals in the last two games – five tonight, four (Saturday in a 5-4 loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning), that should be enough on the road to win hockey games if you play well defensively.
“We’re sloppy. Everybody’s to blame. We need saves. We need better defensive play. We need guys killing plays. We need reloads. All that kind of stuff.”
Tomas Tatar, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Shea Weber also had strikes for Montreal.
“Just not tight enough,” Weber said. “It was just loose everywhere. We’ve got to be as determined defensively as we are offensively, especially when we get down. It seems like we get down and we find this energy and this life and this passion. We need to play with it consistently, especially for 60 minutes and at both ends of the ice as well.”
Aleksander Barkov also struck twice for the Panthers.
“There were a lot of good things in the game, and protecting the lead was an improvement,” Quenneville said. “Getting points at home is important for us and we had a great crowd tonight. Everybody was into it and they had a lot of fun. It was an exciting game.”
Mike Matheson and Noel Acciari g added single markers in the win.
[WATCH: All Canadiens vs. Panthers highlights]
Carey Price made 28 saves in the loss.
“Teams are generating chances,” Price said. “I’ve got to do my part and make more stops.”
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