Late surge gives Habs 6th win in row
MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens continued to roll, rallying from a third-period deficit to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-1 Thursday night at the Bell Centre.
Alex Galchenyuk, Max Pacioretty and Torrey Mitchell scored for Montreal (7-0-1), which won its sixth straight. Canadiens goalie Carey Price made 30 saves.
Alex Killorn scored for the Lightning (5-2-0), who saw their two-game winning streak snapped. Goaltender Ben Bishop stopped 23 shots.
The Canadiens were in control through the first half of the opening frame, maintaining possession and holding the Lightning without a shot until midway through the period.
Killorn broke the scoreless tie at 16:08 of the second period. Victor Hedman fired a shot from the left point, and Killorn, battling with Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin in the low slot, got his stick on it to redirect into the back of the net.
The goal extended the winger's scoring streak to three games, giving him tallies in six of the Lightning's seven games thus far.
Price gave his team a chance to stay within reach early in the third period when he denied Ondrej Palat with a quick pad save.
Montreal's power play connected for the third straight game to get the crowd roaring at 6:12 of the third period. Andrei Markov sent a perfect feed from the blue line over to Galchenyuk in the right circle, and the Canadiens center fired the one-timer past Bishop.
Pacioretty gave the Canadiens their first lead of the night at 10:23. A strong shift that started with a quality scoring chance from Andrew Shaw ended with the pesky winger serving as the screen on Pacioretty's snipe from the top of the right circle for his second of the season.
Mitchell capped off the scoring with a tally into an empty net with 44 seconds remaining.
Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov left the game in the first period and did not return after falling on the ice and into the boards.
NOTES: Lightning G Ben Bishop played in his 200th NHL game. ... Montreal dressed the same lineup as Wednesday in Brooklyn, scratching LW Daniel Carr and D Mikhail Sergachev for the sixth and fourth straight game, respectively. ... Tampa Bay scratched D Matt Taormina. ... Canadiens G Carey Price faced the Lightning for the first time since May 12, 2015, during the teams' second round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. ... The game was Tampa Bay's third of a season-high six-game road trip. ... The Canadiens played in front of a sellout crowd for 501st consecutive game (456 in the regular season and 45 in the playoffs); the last non-sellout crowd at the Bell Centre was on Jan. 8, 2004, against the Lightning.