Greiss, Islanders shut out Canadiens
MONTREAL -- The Canadiens' struggles to string wins together continued Thursday as Montreal lost 3-0 to the New York Islanders at the Bell Centre.
Anthony Beauvillier, Anders Lee and John Tavares scored for the Islanders, who are 12-4-2 under interim coach Doug Weight.
Carey Price stopped 21 shots for Montreal, which hasn't won consecutive games since the first week of January. Thomas Greiss made 24 saves for New York (29-21-10) to register his third shutout of the season, all since mid-January.
Beauvillier, a rookie who grew up an hour east of Montreal dreaming of one day playing at the Bell Centre, went one better at 5:28 of the first period. Brock Nelson, at the right point, found Beauvillier alone in the left circle, and the left winger beat Price short side.
The Canadiens (32-21-8) had a couple of chances on the power play midway through the opening frame on bullets from Shea Weber, but Greiss stood tall.
Lee made it 2-0 Islanders at 5:58 of the second. Josh Bailey showed patience at the blue line before dishing off to Lee, who easily skated past defenseman Alexei Emelin before skating in close on Price.
New York nearly got a third one later in the period when Nikolay Kulemin's shot trickled wide of the Canadiens netminder.
Fans started to get restless in the third, with boos heard from the arena's upper level. Weber turned those into cheers when his blast from the blue line beat Greiss, but the goal was immediately waved off due to a high stick, a call that stood after a review.
Moments later, the Canadiens again thought they got on the board but were denied once again when the officials waved it off after Artturi Lehkonen batted the puck in with his hand.
Tavares sealed the game with an empty-net goal in the final minute.
NOTES: Montreal's Claude Julien coached his 1,000th NHL game. He has a 540-333-10-117 record. ... With both teams having made changes behind their bench, the game featured the third different coaching matchup between the two this season (Michel Therrien/Jack Capuano; Therrien/Doug Weight; Claude Julien/Weight). ... Montreal scratched C David Desharnais, RW Sven Andrighetto, and D Nikita Nesterov. ... Injured Tuesday against Detroit, Islanders RW Cal Clutterbuck (upper body) and C Casey Cizikas (upper body) didn't play. while D Adam Pelech was a healthy scratch.