Canadiens defeat Bruins, gain in East wild-card race

MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens continued to push for their first Stanley Cup Playoff berth since 2021 with their third straight win, 4-1 against the Boston Bruins at Bell Centre on Thursday.

Brendan Gallagher and Nick Suzuki each had a goal and an assist, and Sam Montembeault made 18 saves for Montreal (36-30-9), which moved two points ahead of the New York Rangers for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

“It’s been too long,” Gallagher said about being in playoff contention. “Really, it makes you appreciate this building, this atmosphere and everything that comes with being a Montreal Canadien. So it’s special coming to the rink. It’s definitely given us a boost right now. The crowd’s unbelievable and I’m really happy that the guys are getting to experience it that maybe haven’t seen it before.”

It was the Canadiens’ first regulation win against the Bruins since Nov. 5, 2019. Boston had gone 15-0-1 against Montreal since then.

“Any team that comes into the Bell Centre right now, it feels like a playoff game,” Canadiens forward Josh Anderson said. “It’s really encouraging for our team right now and we’ve just got to keep winning games.”

Elias Lindholm scored, and Jeremy Swayman made 28 saves for Boston (30-37-9), which lost its 10th straight (0-9-1).

“The other teams are just hungrier than ours,” Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov said. “They want to win more, that’s the bottom line. We’re just not hard on the puck. We’re easy to play against.”

The Bruins tied the eighth-longest losing streak in their history. They most recently lost 10 in a row from Jan. 16 to Feb. 10, 2010.

“It’s going to take 60 minutes of consistent hockey right now,” Boston interim coach Joe Sacco said. “And I think we have moments where we play well, but not long enough, during the course of a game. We have to be able to sustain more a 60-minute effort and I think that’s what it’s going to take.

“And we have to just understand that we have to pull out of this together. It’s not about one person or two persons trying to pull us out of it, we have to do it together as a team, but more focused on the process, how we play, and when you do that usually the score will take care of that.”

Christian Dvorak scored 40 seconds into the second period to give Montreal a 1-0 lead. He put a wrist shot past Swayman’s glove from the slot to cap a flurry of action in the goalmouth.

Cole Caufield made it 2-0 at 14:42 when he scored on a 2-on-1 with Suzuki. Caufield pushed his NHL career high to 35 goals with a shot into an open left side off a feed from Suzuki, who drew the puck back to get around Henri Jokiharju in the right face-off circle before passing to his left.

Gallagher extended it to 3-0 at 3:00 of the third period. He was alone in the slot to one-time a shot past Swayman when the puck popped out front after Jake Evans forced a turnover in the left corner.

“We’ve been chasing the game a lot lately, and we’ve done a good job of it, but it was nice to play with the lead a little bit and get used to that as well,” Gallagher said. “I thought we had a pretty good game tonight. It wasn’t perfect but we did what we needed to do. And as far as we do that, we control our own destiny.”

Lindholm cut it to 3-1 at 13:19 when he scored on a rebound at the left post.

Suzuki scored into an empty net with 1:57 left for the 4-1 final.

Suzuki, who has 81 points (26 goals, 55 assists) in 75 games, is the first Canadiens player with 80 points in a season since Alex Kovalev had 84 points (35 goals, 49 assists) in 2007-08.

“I remember him in the All-Star Games a lot, doing tricks with his feet,” said Suzuki, the Montreal captain. “It’s nice to be in the same category as him for something. It was something that everyone kind of wanted from outside, a point-per-game player, but in the future we’ll probably have a bunch.”

NOTES: Suzuki has three straight multipoint games for a fourth time this season, a feat last accomplished for Montreal by Vincent Damphousse (four in 1995-96). It was Suzuki’s 23rd multipoint game, the most in a season by a Canadiens player since Kovalev had 25 in 2007-08. … Caufield became the first Montreal player to score 35 goals in a season since Max Pacioretty in 2016-17. … Bruins forward Morgan Geekie had an assist, giving him seven points (three goals, four assists) in a five-game point streak.