Senators 5, Canadiens 0
OTTAWA -- The Ottawa Senators scored three shorthanded goals en route to a 5-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night at Canadian Tire Centre.
The Senators, who lead the league with 15 shorthanded goals, also received shutout goaltending by Andrew Hammond, who stopped 30 shots while making his first start since March 8.
It was the fourth time in team history they scored three shorthanded goals in one game.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Curtis Lazar, Marc Methot, Alex Chiasson and Mika Zibanejad scored for the Senators, who rebounded from a dismal 3-1 loss in Buffalo on Friday to improve their record in the second of back-to-back games to 3-9.
The Senators led 2-0 entering the third, before Methot bounced a shot in from behind the Montreal net off goalie Ben Scrivens and Chiasson scored for the second time in two games, squeezing a shot past Scrivens while in on a shorthanded break. Zibanejad rounded out the scoring when he deflected a Mike Hoffman shot after a Montreal turnover at 17:52 of the third.
Scrivens wound up with 39 saves in the Montreal net. It was a tough night for Canadiens’ first liners Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk, both of whom were minus-4.
Lazar stopped his personal slump at 19 games while scoring the only goal of the second period with his team a man short at the 12:01 mark. A clearing shot off the boards by Dion Phaneuf snuck by Habs defenseman Andrei Markov at the Ottawa blue line, and Lazar sped after it to go in on Scrivens and beat him with a high shot to the stick side. It was Lazar’s sixth goal of the season, as well as the Senators' 14th while shorthanded.
Pageau scored his league leading sixth shorthanded goal to put the Senators in front 1-0 at 12:02 of the first period. On a 2-on-1 break with Mark Stone, Pageau accepted the pass that eluded a couple of Montreal sticks to flip home his 17th of the season.
That would be it for the first-period scoring, although both teams had a number of quality chances while the Senators outshot the Canadiens 17-13.
NOTES: Canadiens D Mark Barberio was ruled out for the game with concussion symptoms, causing more woe for the team's black and blue line, which is already missing regulars P.K. Subban, Jeff Petry and Tom Gilbert. In Barberio's absence, Canadiens D Alexei Emelin switched to the right side and was paired on the first blue line unit with Andrei Markov. ... Canadiens D Darren Dietz was recalled from St. John's IceCaps of the AHL to play his third NHL game. ... Senators LW Ryan Dzingel was scratched for the first time since being recalled Feb.6. In the 20-game stretch, Dzingel had three goals and three assists. ... Taking Dzingel's roster spot was LW Matt Puempel, who was scratched seven times in the first nine games of his promotion from Binghamton. ... Canadiens C Alex Galchenyuk entered the night with 12 goals and two assists in his last 11 games. ... Senators RW Mark Stone had 25 points in his last 22 games before Saturday.