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Canadiens defeat Flyers for fifth straight win

Dec 22, 2006 - 6:05 AM MONTREAL (Ticker) -- The Montreal Canadiens were productive in special situations.

Rookie Guillaume Latendresse and defenseman Craig Rivet both scored a power-play goal and Mike Johnson recorded a shorthanded tally as the Canadiens posted their fifth straight win with a 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers, who extended their club-record to eight straight losses.

Blue-liner Andrei Markov had two assists for Montreal, which is 4-for-12 with the man advantage in its last two contests.

"The special teams have been there for us throughout the season, we didn't play our best tonight (on the power play) but we got ourselves two goals," Canadiens center Saku Koivu said. "The thing we are looking for now is the even strength, 5-on-5 play."

With 3:20 left in the first period, Latendresse forced Sergei Samsonov's rebound past the glove of Flyers goaltender Antero Niittymaki for a 1-0 edge. Nearly a minute later, Rivet tallied on a snap shot under the crossbar to extend the lead.

After the Flyers halved the deficit early in the middle session, Johnson deflected Markov's shot in glove side for a 3-1 edge with 49 seconds left in the period.

Philadelphia responded 21 seconds later on a power-play goal by Jeff Carter.

But Christopher Higgins rebuilt the margin 13:57 into the final session by pushing home Koivu's rebound for a 4-2 advantage.

"I think they (Flyers) were pushing pretty hard until that goal," Higgins said. "You can create a lot of offense and not score and then the other team kind of comes back and gets the bounces and can tie the game so that (goal) was a big one."

David Aebischer, who finished with 26 saves, stopped all 11 shots in the closing period to seal things. It was his 100th career victory.

"I think it's (milestone) great, it's not 551 yet but I think it's quite an accomplishment," Aebischer said.

Mike Knuble had a man-advantage tally and Niittymaki made 33 saves for the Flyers.

"We played hard. We were in the game if we didn't take penalties we were definitely in there but we can't afford to take those early penalties against this team here," Knuble said.

"It's tough, it's very tough now, we're doing some good things but still losing in the end," Philadelphia left wing Simon Gagne said. "We're close but something's missing, it's not good enough but I thought the effort was pretty good tonight. It's eight (losses) in a row and it's not very fun."