Tomas Plekanec scored twice and added an assist, helping the Canadiens to a 4-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night that extended Montreal's win streak to three games.
Brendan Gallagher and Devante Smith-Pelly also scored for Montreal. With 37 saves, Ben Scrivens earned his third consecutive victory after going 0-4 to start the season. Scrivens had back-to-back wins over the weekend, defeating his former club Edmonton on Saturday and then Carolina on Sunday.
Valtteri Filppula and Victor Hedman scored for the Lightning. Ben Bishop stopped 23 of 27 shots for Tampa Bay, which has dropped consecutive games in regulation for the first time since Nov. 27-28 after a 5-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Monday.
Montreal lost defenseman Nathan Beaulieu and forward Brian Flynn to lower-body injuries on the same shift late in the second period. Neither returned for the third.
Plekanec scored his first of the game at 6:40 of the second. With the score tied at 1, the Canadiens forward went five-hole on Bishop following a missed clearance by Tampa's Tyler Johnson.
Plekanec got his second at 6:17 of the third to give Montreal a 4-1 lead, waiting out Bishop to beat the Lightning netminder from a tight angle. After going seven games without a goal, Plekanec now has seven points in his last three games (three goals, four assists).
Tampa Bay shot 16 pucks on net in the third period, but was only rewarded once.
Montreal has won three straight for the first time in more than two months. And the Canadiens started things off in this one on the right foot.
Following a blocked shot in their own end, Gallagher and Plekanec stormed down the ice on a 2-on-1. With the puck on his stick, Gallagher opted not to pass and fired home a bouncing puck top shelf past Bishop at 5:56 of the first.
A failed clearance by P.K. Subban led to Tampa Bay's tying goal 40 seconds into the second. Victor Hedman intercepted Subban's weak dump-out attempt before passing to Filppula, who used Ryan Callahan as a screen to beat Scrivens.
After Plekanec restored Montreal's lead, Subban made up for his earlier mistake. With 8 seconds remaining in the second, the defenseman's backhander went off Smith-Pelly's shin and in. Subban extended his points streak to seven, and has at least one point in 16 of his last 18 games.
NOTES: Canadiens D Jeff Petry (lower body) was not in the lineup. ... Six players from Canada's 1972 Summit Series team were honored in a pregame ceremony: Guy Lapointe, Ken Dryden, Yvan Cournoyer, Peter Mahovlich, Serge Savard and Pat Stapleton.
