MONTREAL — Pascal Dupuis scored on
a slap shot 13:21 into the third period and Marc-Andre Fleury made 19
saves as the Pittsburgh Penguins stopped Montreal's three-game winning
streak with a 3-2 win over the Canadiens on Thursday night.
Dupuis wound up from the top of the
left circle and drove a high shot that struck goalie Carey Price's
glove before going into the net.
Sergei Gonchar had a goal and an
assist, and Matt Cooke also scored for the Penguins, who had lost two
in a row since becoming the first team to reach 20 wins this season.
Price stopped 38 shots for Montreal,
which had won three in a row after a 5-1 victory over Boston on Friday
in the Canadiens' 100th anniversary game.
Matt D'Agostini and Roman Hamrlik
scored on Montreal's first and third shots of the second period as the
Canadiens took a 2-1 lead. The Canadiens had been outshot 9-0 midway
through the frame and 20-7 overall before they broke through.
Montreal, outshot 41-21 in the game,
had an apparent tying goal waved off with 5:52 left when the referees
ruled that the whistle had blown before Scott Gomez fired the puck into
the net.
Sidney Crosby was held without a
point in his second game back from a groin injury that forced him to
sit out Saturday's 2-1 overtime loss to Chicago. The Penguins captain
has failed to record a point in each of his last three games in
Montreal and has not scored a goal in his last five games there.
Crosby, who scored his 20th goal and
eighth in four games in a 3-2 loss to Carolina on Monday, had four
goals and an assist in the Penguins' two previous games against the
Canadiens this season, both home wins.
Cooke drew Pittsburgh even at 2 when he redirected Gonchar's point shot past Price 17:45 into the second for his sixth goal.
Gonchar, who recorded his 650th
career point on Cooke's goal, scored his fourth goal of the season 6:38
in on a nice feed from Bill Guerin.
D'Agostini made the Canadiens' first
shot of the second period count when he fired a wrist shot over
Fleury's right shoulder at 10:48 to tie it at 1.
Hamrlik made it 2-1 on a power play at 13:38 when he drove a slap shot from the left point past Fleury for his fifth goal.
The Canadiens are making a habit out of scoring on few shots.
Montreal won 4-1 in Ottawa on
Tuesday despite being outshot 46-27. The Canadiens managed only 13
shots Monday in a 3-1 win over Philadelphia in which the teams combined
for 28 shots. That was a franchise low for fewest shots recorded in a
game by both teams.
Notes
Gonchar has 195 goals and 455
assists in 949 regular-season NHL games with Washington, Boston and
Pittsburgh. … Canadiens D Jaroslav Spacek was back in the lineup
after leaving Tuesday's game after the first period because of a lower
body injury.