• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Pacioretty, Price push Canadiens past Tampa Bay

Mar 6, 2011 - 7:36 AM Tampa, FL (Sports Network) - Max Pacioretty scored two goals, Carey Price made 43 saves and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2, at St. Pete Times Forum.

Hal Gill and David Desharnais also tallied for Montreal, which earned its fourth straight win.

Vincent Lecavalier and Dominic Moore lit the lamp for the Southeast Division- leading Lightning, who suffered their third consecutive loss. Dwayne Roloson stopped 19 shots in defeat.

Gill opened the scoring 5:27 into the contest with a slap shot from the point that found room between the pads of Roloson. The veteran defenseman snapped a 99-game goal drought Thursday against Florida.

"It's nice to help out, you get lucky shoot at the net and it goes in," Gill said. "It's always fun to score. I'd love to do more, but I have to focus on other things."

Montreal cashed in a power play to go up 2-0 at the 8:41 mark of the first period. Desharnais took Andrei Kostitsyn's pass from behind the net and switched to the backhand before sweeping the puck past the left pad of Roloson.

"You can tell in the first period they were a little bit quicker on the pucks," Lecavalier said. "When you're the first on the puck, that's usually the team that's going to win."

Moore and Pacioretty traded power-play goals in the middle frame.

Pacioretty struck again at 1:18 of the third period, hammering home a feed from Scott Gomez to put the Habs up 4-1. Lecavalier capped the scoring with 5:53 remaining.

Game Notes

Montreal captain Brian Gionta collected an assist in his 600th NHL game...Montreal forward Tomas Plekanec and Lightning forward Teddy Purcell both had two assists.