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Stuart scores twice as Bruins escape with win over Canadiens

Dec 5, 2006 - 3:09 AM MONTREAL (Ticker) -- Brad Stuart came through in the third period to enable the Boston Bruins to escape an embarrassing loss.

Stuart had two goals and an assist and Marc Savard collected three assists as the Bruins snapped a six-game losing streak against the Montreal Canadiens with a 6-5 victory.

After failing to hold a three-goal lead, the Bruins rallied behind Stuart, who recorded his first multi-goal game of the season to help them win for the fourth time in five outings.

"We won a one-goal game and I think we played much better in the third," Boston coach Dave Lewis said. "It's hard to explain. It was more emotional than technical from our end of it."

"We came in after the second and we weren't very upbeat about the way things were going," Stuart said. "The good thing for us is that we put that behind us and said if we win the period, we win the game, and that's what it came down to."

Stuart snapped a 5-5 tie with 1:48 remaining when he fired a slap shot from the left point past goaltender David Aebischer for his fourth goal of the season.

Montreal took advantage of Wayne Primeau's hooking penalty and tied the contest with with 7:13 to play when defenseman Sheldon Souray rifled a blast from inside the blue line that beat netminder Tim Thomas.

Boston received goals from Shean Donovan and Primeau in the first 3:18 of the second period for a 4-1 lead before Montreal replaced goaltender Cristobal Huet with Aebischer, which seemed to give the Canadiens a spark.

Michael Ryder began Montreal's comeback with a power-play tally, a wrister from the right faceoff circle after Thomas stopped Souray's shot for his seventh goal of the season at 4:37 of the middle session.

Mike Johnson cut the deficit to 4-3 with 4:06 left in the second with a bad-angle shot from the left side that got over a sprawling Thomas for his sixth tally.

With 39 seconds to go in the second, Alexander Perezhogin netted his fourth tally with a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Thomas to the top-left corner to tie the game.

However, Stuart put a stop to the Canadiens' rally with his first tally of the game off Savard's feed midway through the third period.

"A positive thing is that we can come back against teams," Souray said. "We've shown that and proven it. The negative thing is that we're doing it a few games now and it's cost us a few points. If we continue to do that it's going to cost us more points."

Glen Murray scored his 14th goal and Thomas made 34 saves to raise his record to 11-6-2 on the season for the Bruins.

"We let it get away in the second but we came out much better in the third and didn't let it slip away completely," Thomas said.

"I don't know if we deserved to win but we won and right now that's what we need," Lewis said. "We need points. To win against a top opponent in their building was important for us."

Guillaume Latendresse netted his fifth tally and Aebischer stopped 12 shots after replacing Huet, who recorded 12 saves for Montreal.

"The reason we've been able to get out of these games not playing a consistent 60 minutes is Huet (has) been so awesome," Souray said. "We've really been leaning hard on him, but we have to do a better job in front of him limiting shots and, I guess, then limit the goals."