Coyotes 3, Canadiens 2
MONTREAL -- The Arizona Coyotes made the most of their chances to give the club a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night at the Bell Centre.
Goaltender Mike Smith made 32 saves for the Coyotes (10-8-1), who won three straight road games in Canada to begin a season for the first time since 1981.
Mike Condon stopped 17 shots for Montreal (14-4-2).
Center Martin Hanzal, right winger Shane Doan and defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored for Arizona. Left winger Max Pacioretty and right winger Dale Weise connected for the Canadiens.
Hanzal got the scoring started at 5:04 of the first period. The puck bounced over right winger Brendan Gallagher's stick in the neutral zone and left winger Anthony Duclair scooped it up, skating into the Canadiens zone and going for the wraparound on Condon. The Montreal netminder made the save but the puck was loose to his right, where Hanzal poked it in for his fourth of the season and team-leading 14th point on the road.
Doan made it 2-0 just over four minutes later. With Arizona skating in 3-on-2, center Tobias Rieder shot from outside the left circle. Condon stopped the shot but couldn't control the direction of the rebound, which bounced out to Doan at the right hashmarks, and the Coyotes captain got a quick stick on it to send it to the back of the net.
Ekman-Larsson extended the visitors' lead on the power play at 3:51 of the second. When the Canadiens couldn't clear the zone, left winger Mikkel Boedker started off some quick passing that wound up in a scramble in front. The puck bounced out to Ekman-Larsson in the slot and the defenseman fired it home, extending his point streak to seven games.
It marked the third straight game that Montreal has trailed 3-0.
Pacioretty got the Canadiens on the board at 15:59. Gallagher corralled a loose puck behind the net and lobbed a pass out to the middle of the zone. Pacioretty was first to it at the top of the slot before beating Smith with a backhand shot.
Weise cut the deficit to one when, with the Canadiens' net empty, he tipped in defenseman Andrei Markov's shot from outside the top of the circle at 19:09.
NOTES: Montreal made one change to its lineup. RW Alexander Semin was scratched and LW Paul Byron drew back in after sitting two games as a healthy scratch. The Canadiens also scratched D Jarred Tinordi. D Alexei Emelin missed his third straight game with a lower-body injury. ... The Coyotes scratched LW John Scott and D Stefan Elliott. ... Arizona RW Steve Downie remained day to day with an upper-body injury. He missed his fourth straight game. ... Earlier in the day, Montreal took G Carey Price off injured reserve and put Emelin on IR. ... The Canadiens and Jets/Coyotes franchise met for the 69th time in history.