Gibson, DeBrincat power Red Wings past Canadiens

MONTREAL -- John Gibson made 27 saves for his third shutout of the season, and the Detroit Red Wings won their third straight game, 4-0 against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Saturday.

It was Gibson's 27th NHL shutout. He is 12-2-0 in his past 14 starts, which include his two previous shutouts.

"He was unbelievable," Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said. "He's been rock solid for us, and just his demeanor, he doesn't get too high, he doesn't get too low. When things weren't going well for him early, he stuck with it. And when he's in net, he gives us a huge confidence boost, and he's just keeping everything in front of him, which is great to see."

Alex DeBrincat had a goal and two assists, and Larkin and Andrew Copp each had a goal and an assist for Detroit (27-15-4), which is 14-4-2 in its past 20 games and leads the Atlantic Division with 58 points, one ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and two ahead of the Canadiens.

"Every win, especially divisional wins, are important, so bank as many points as you can," Larkin said. "And who knows what the magic number is with how the [Eastern Conference] is this year? We know that it's not going to be smooth sailing the whole way, so bank as many points now and build our team game."

Jacob Fowler made 20 saves for Montreal (25-14-6), which was shut out for the third time this season and had won three straight.

"Some nights you get the bounces, some nights you don't," Fowler said. "And credit to them, they worked hard, they played a good game and any lapse they had, their goalie made a big save."

Lucas Raymond gave the Red Wings a 1-0 lead at 4:52 of the second period. He shot into an open net when the puck took an odd bounce out front from the left corner after Fowler went behind to play James van Riemsdyk's dump-in along the boards.

"It's nice when the bounces are going your way," van Riemsdyk said. "I thought it was just a good team win. Other than a couple of mistakes here and there, I thought we played a pretty solid game overall."

Said Fowler: "It's hard. You want to make every save you can for your team and I thought I was seeing the puck pretty well. I thought I was controlling the game well and it [stinks] to kind of take the wind out of the team's sails like that. It [stinks] to learn the hard way but it's part of learning the game a little bit better."

Larkin's power-play goal at 11:43 made it 2-0 when he scored off a face-off win after the Canadiens were penalized for too many men at 11:37. He snapped a low shot past Fowler from the top of the left face-off circle off a feed from DeBrincat after a pass from Moritz Seider following Larkin's face-off win.

DeBrincat scored 34 seconds into the third to push it to 3-0 when he was left open in the slot and one-timed a slap shot past Fowler off Patrick Kane's pass from the right side.

"It was just a couple of bad bounces for us, and we couldn't find a way to put the puck in the net," said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki, who played his 500th NHL game, all for Montreal.

Copp scored an empty-net goal with 1:07 remaining for the 4-0 final.

"Obviously 'Gibby' was outstanding, but we did what we had to do to win, and I think we've been finding ways to win, so that's the most important thing," van Riemsdyk said.

NOTES: Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle played 18:54 and had two shots on goal in his first game since Oct. 16. He had surgery on Nov. 13 to repair a partially torn adductor muscle and missed 39 games. … Suzuki is the sixth player in NHL history to play 500 consecutive games from the start of his career, joining Doug Jarvis (964), Andrew Cogliano (830), Andy Hebenton (630), Billy Harris (576) and Murray Murdoch (508). … Larkin scored his 265th goal with Detroit to tie John Ogrodnick for 10th place in team history.