Tuesday night’s 5-3 victory over the Florida Panthers snapped the host Montreal Canadiens’ seven-game losing streak thanks to two goals from Nick Suzuki.
The Canadiens (29-33-12, 70 points) have won four straight games. Joel Armia, Cole Caufield, and Jake Evans also scored, while Alex Newhook got two assists and Sam Montembeault made 37 saves.
Florida (47-24-5, 99 points) has lost four of five and eight of ten (2-7-1). Anton Lundell scored and assisted on two goals, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett both scored, and Anthony Stolarz made 34 saves.
Two of the Panthers’ best players, Carter Verhaeghe (upper-body injury) and Matthew Tkachuk (sickness), were not available to play. Additionally, defenseman Aaron Ekblad suffered an unexplained injury late in the first period and did not play again.
Florida had seven games left, including a Saturday clash in Boston, and entered the day two points behind the Boston Bruins for first place in the Atlantic Division.
by the beginning of the second period, the Canadiens were behind by a goal, but by 5:58, they were knotted 2-2.
Florida defenseman Dmitry Kulikov tried to pass to his defensive partner in his own zone, but Suzuki intercepted the puck and scored from the slot. Suzuki scored again with a tip-in while on a power play to move the Canadiens ahead 3-2 at 12:24 of the second. Caufield scored his 21st goal of the season on a wraparound 33 seconds into the third period to extend the lead to 4-2, and Evans widened the lead further with a short-handed breakaway at 4:34. Bennett scored with 1:16 left from the bottom of the left circle to make it 5-3.
At 9:16 of the first period, Lundell scored his 10th goal of the season from close range after dribbling past a Montreal defender. This gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
Michael Pezzetta attempted a wrist shot, but Armia was there to grab the rebound and bring the score to one at 10:12.
Around 13:13 in the first, Florida took the lead again.
Cutting down the middle, Barkov received a feed from Vladimir Tarasenko that was centered from the boards. He tripped over Montembeault’s pads, feigned a shot, then darted across the crease to score with his backhand.
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