Price, Canadiens stop Coyotes 5-2
MONTREAL -- Five different goal-scorers helped the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-2 win against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night at the Bell Centre.
Alexei Emelin, Torrey Mitchell, Shea Weber, Alex Galchenyuk and Artturi Lehkonen each scored for Montreal (3-0-1), which has scored at least three goals in each of its first four games.
Jakob Chychrun and Laurent Dauphin tallied for the Coyotes (1-2-0), who have allowed 12 goals in their last two games.
Montreal's Carey Price, making his first regular season start since Nov. 25, 2015, made 27 saves. Louis Domingue allowed four goals on 19 shots before he was lifted for Justin Peters. Peters stopped 23 shots in relief.
Emelin snapped an 86-game goal-less drought to open the scoring at 13:20 of the first period. Paul Byron sent a David Desharnais feed over to Emelin at the blue line, and the Canadiens defenseman skated to just outside the left circle before blasting one past a screened Domingue.
Mitchell doubled Montreal's lead at 2:07 of the second period. Defenseman Nathan Beaulieu put in a strong effort along the right boards and never lost control of the puck in a battle before dishing off a perfect cross-ice feed to Mitchell in the left circle for the one-timer.
Weber notched his first in a Canadiens uniform two minutes later on the power play when Andrei Markov set him up for his noted slap shot at the top of the left circle. The goal announcement earned Weber a loud cheer and standing ovation from the capacity crowd.
Galchenyuk chased Domingue shortly thereafter when he shimmied into the Coyotes' zone and fired a shot from just outside the left circle that beat the netminder blocker side at 5:49.
Chychrun, the 16th overall pick at the 2016 NHL Draft, netted his first career goal to get the visitors on the board less than a minute later. Canadiens rookie defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, the ninth overall pick back in June, tried to clear the puck during a scramble in the crease but it went right to Chychrun at the hashmarks.
Dauphin made it 4-2 when he took advantage of a collision with Beaulieu that knocked the Montreal blue-liner out of the play and, with the Coyoyes shorthanded, backhanded a rebound past Price at 16:09.
Lehkonen notched his second of the season at 12:38 of the third period. Tomas Plekanec picked up a loose puck off a Weber shot and fed the rookie all alone in the slot.
NOTES: With G Carey Price returning, the Canadiens assigned G Charlie Lindgren to the AHL St. John's IceCaps earlier in the day. ... Montreal kept its lineup intact from Tuesday's win, leaving LW Daniel Carr, D Greg Pateryn and D Zach Redmond as the healthy scratches. ... The Coyotes scratched LW Lawson Crouse, D Kevin Connauton, G Mike Smith (lower body), LW Jamie McGinn (upper body), and D Michael Stone (knee). ... Former Canadiens D Jarred Tinordi, traded to Arizona last season, served the second-to-last game of his suspension for violating the terms of the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program. ... Arizona C Laurent Dauphin, a Montreal native, played his first game at the Bell Centre. ... Montreal announced just before the game that D Zach Redmond is out for six weeks with a broken foot suffered in practice.