Montembeault helps Canadiens defeat Panthers

MONTREAL -- Cole Caufield had a goal and an assist, and the Montreal Canadiens won 3-1 against the Florida Panthers at Bell Centre on Saturday.

Patrik Laine scored a power-play goal and Christian Dvorak scored his 100th NHL goal for Montreal (32-27-7), who are 7-1-2 in their past 10 games.

“From start to finish, I think it was one of the best games we’ve played since I’ve been here,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who was hired on Feb. 9, 2022. “The fans spoiled us in the third period, and we wanted to give them our all. It was a nice experience for everyone in the building tonight. I really enjoyed the third period, the way we carried ourselves and all the atmosphere.

“Now it’s about trying to go out and deserve more moments like that.”

Sam Montembeault made 21 saves, including a glove grab on Carter Verhaeghe’s 6-on-4 power-play opportunity with 2:38 remaining in the third period, for his sixth win in his past seven starts (6-0-1).

“It felt pretty good,” Montembeault said about the save. “It went straight in. Sometimes you get those, and you don’t catch them so they’re not as nice, but it was a good save. Growing up I saw Carey Price do a couple of those at the Bell Centre so to pull one like that at the end of the game is pretty special.”

Mackie Samoskevich scored, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 12 saves for Florida (41-23-3), which has lost two of three following a six-game winning streak.

“They beat us and they’re in a fight for their lives, and they played their butts off, and that should be the story here,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “And I don’t want to give you an honest assessment of our game because I don’t want to be disrespectful of a big win for them.”

Laine’s power-play goal gave Montreal a 1-0 lead at 5:15 of the first period. He took a pass from Lane Hutson and scored with a wrist shot from the left face-off circle moments after he misfired on a one-timer and then shot the puck wide.

Caufield made it 2-0 at 15:56 when he spun around and fired a wrist shot past Bobrovsky’s blocker after taking a pass from Juraj Slafkovsky.

Samoskevich cut it to 2-1 at 3:51 of the second period. He took a return pass from Verhaeghe along the boards behind the net and carried the puck out front to put a wrist shot past Montembeault glove side.

“[Verhaeghe] didn’t really have much when I rimmed it to him so I figured I’d give him an out behind the net and that’s where I went,” Samoskevich said, “And then [Sam Bennett] kind of made some room for me in front and I just took it there and put it in the net.”

Dvorak put Montreal up 3-1 at 8:11 of the third period when he deflected David Savard’s shot from the right point for his milestone goal.

“I loved our whole game,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “In the third we just stuck to the game plan, kept things simple, didn’t force anything and got rewarded with a big goal by ‘Devo’ and we were able to close it out.”

NOTES: A potential power-play goal by Montreal forward Alex Newhook at 11:36 of the first was waved off after Florida coach Paul Maurice successfully challenged that Brendan Gallagher interfered with Bobrovsky on the play. … Hutson leads NHL rookies with 52 points (four goals, 48 assists). The defenseman got his 50th career assist in his 68th NHL game, the second-fastest in Canadiens history behind only Vincent Damphousse, who got his 50th assist in his 68th game in 1992-93. Hutson is the fourth-fastest defenseman in NHL history to 50 assists. Only Larry Murphy (62 games), Mark Howe (65) and Stefan Persson (66) required less games.