The visiting Montreal Canadiens broke a tie with four unanswered goals in the third period on the way to a 6-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.
Zack Bolduc scored the winning goal at the 7:04 mark to spark Montreal’s late run. All four goals came in a 5:18 span, including two on separate 5-on-3 advantages.
Nick Suzuki, Ivan Demidov and Juraj Slafkovsky had a goal and an assist apiece and Sammy Blais and Cole Caufield each scored a goal for the Habs, who are 3-0-1 in their last four games.
Montreal defensemen Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson both dished out three assists, while Jacob Fowler made 26 saves to move to 3-1-1 in his young career.
Marat Khusnutdinov and Alex Steeves scored goals and Jeremy Swayman stopped 23 shots for Boston, which is on a four-game winless streak (0-3-1), all at home.
Montreal forward Alexandre Texier exited in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return.
The Canadiens flipped the score for good at 7:04 of the third. Bolduc crashed the net and scored into a virtually open net after Swayman made an initial save on a charging Suzuki’s initial shot from the slot.
Caufield extended the Canadiens’ lead with their first 5-on-3 goal at 8:43, driving towards the crease from the left circle after the puck found him off Dobson’s broken stick.
At 10:09, Suzuki continued the onslaught late on Montreal’s second two-man advantage. He batted the puck out of mid-air after Dobson’s point shot deflected off Slafkovsky in front.
The score reached 6-2 when Slafkovsky dropped down to a knee in the right dot to one-time Hutson’s cross-ice feed with 7:38 left.
Boston’s Tanner Jeannot and Montreal’s Josh Anderson wasted little time energizing the crowd, dropping the gloves off the opening faceoff for the first of two fights in the opening 8:28.
Minutes after Fowler kicked away David Pastrnak’s shot on an odd-man rush with Morgan Geekie, Montreal scored first at 11:08. Blais banked the opening tally in off Swayman’s shoulder from near the left goal line.
Mason Lohrei made up for a turnover that led to Montreal’s opening goal, walking past a defender on the left side and feeding Khusnutdinov for a close one-timer that brought the hosts even at 12:25.
Steeves used a power-play goal to lift the Bruins with 17.9 seconds left in the first. He got free in the right circle to receive a Pastrnak pass and snipe short-side high on Fowler.
Just 1:58 into the second, Demidov made it 2-2 on a breakaway goal coming in from center.
After killing off a Steeves double-minor for high-sticking late in the middle frame, Boston had a potential go-ahead goal waved off with less than five seconds left. Pastrnak was deemed to interfere with Fowler as an Elias Lindholm shot went in.
–Field Level Media
