• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Canadiens skate past sliding Penguins

Feb 4, 2009 - 5:22 AM MONTREAL (Ticker) -- All-Star Carey Price made 23 saves to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 4-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday.

Defenseman Roman Hamrlik scored in the first period and Chris Higgins and Maxim Lapierre added second-period goals for Montreal, which entered having lost five of six.

Pittsburgh All-Star Evgeni Malkin scored midway through the third to make it 3-2, but Andrei Kostitsyn scored with 4:15 left to seal the win for Montreal.

"Our gameplan is to work hard when we have the puck, when we don't have the puck, put the puck in the right place and try to move the puck from one zone to the other as quick as possible," Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau said. "When we do those things consistently teams don't have a choice they have to back off. When we play like this and the more we do this we have success."

Malkin has scored in three straight games and has a team-leading 22 tallies this season for the Penguins, who have lost three straight overall and have one win in their last eight road games.

"We got beat by high speed, our guys looked really really slow tonight, some guys looked really slow tonight," Pittsburgh coach Michel Therrien said. "We can't give up four goals on the road, and we needed to score more than two. We need more desperation from a lot of players. Some players were a no show, it's that simple."

Pittsburgh struck first just 2:30 into the contest after Luca Caputi netted his first goal of the season after he collected a loose puck in front. Caputi poked the puck through traffic and inside the left post to give the Penguins the lead.

Montreal answered to pull even two minutes later, thanks to the hustle of Kostitsyn.

When Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury attempted to clear the zone from just off to the right of his net, Kostitsyn raced in and stripped the puck from Fleury. The Belarussian turned and sent a pass back toward the left point where Hamrlik snapped a shot which beat an out-of-position Fleury.

Montreal notched a shorthanded goal at 11:05 of the middle session to claim its first lead of the game on Higgins' seventh of the campaign. Higgins froze Fleury in place and wired a shot from 10 feet out that found the top right corner.

"It's always tough when you give up a goal when you're on the powerplay but I don't think that was the main reason why we lost, they scored four," Fleury said.

The Canadiens took a two-goal lead following Lapierre's goal with 4:53 remaining in the second. Rookie Max Pacioretty won the battle behind the Penguins' net and sent a backhanded pass out in front of Fleury. Lapierre was on the doorstep and one-timed the puck over Fleury's extended glove to make it 3-1.

"I thought we all worked really hard and we played well together, we kind of battled down low and I think that worked really well tonight," Pacioretty said. "It's easy to get lost in this line-up with all the depth we have upfront so some people have to step up since we lost two great forwards for a little bit."