In Montreal, Evander Kane had two power play strikes as the San Jose Sharks handed the Canadiens a 4-2 loss.
“This is the first year I’ve had an opportunity to play on the first unit and I’m just trying to take advantage of that,” Kane said. “It’s fun scoring 5-on-5, I’ve done a lot of that in my career, but it’s definitely nice to get those power-play opportunities, and with one less guy out there for them, it makes it a little bit easier.”
Aaron Dell made 35 saves to get the win for San Jose.
“I think we played probably the best game we’ve played yet,” Dell said. “We might have been a little bit loose in that first period, but we talked about that and then tightened it right up for the rest of the game after that.”
Nick Cousins and Joel Armia scored for the Canadiens.
“Let me put it this way, did we get some chances? Absolutely,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. “We had lots of chances, even in the third period, but we didn’t bury them. They didn’t get that many chances, but they buried them.”
The Sharks are 4-1-1 in their last six games.
“I thought we had a good start in the first period, the first five minutes, and then they started taking it to us,” Kane said. “And [Dell] held us in there and kept it at a 1-0 game and we were able to tie it.”
Kevin Labanc and Melker Karlsson also scored for San Jose.
“I thought we had a good game,” Labanc said. “I mean, it was a big game for us and we needed the two points. So we came out, we did that right from the get-go, we had a goal called back, but it didn’t stop us. We just kept our foot on the gas pedal and came out of here with two points.”
Carey Price made 19 saves in the loss.
“Special teams have to make a difference. We almost made the [Stanley Cup Playoffs] last year without much of a power play, not to say that’s what we want out of our penalty kill,” Shea Weber said after the loss. “It’s got to be a lot better. The power play has been pretty good for us this year, it’s just the way the penalty kill is going right now we just have to figure that out.”
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