Stempniak nets pair to lead Hurricanes past Habs
MONTREAL -- Lee Stempniak scored two goals to lift the Carolina Hurricanes to a 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night at the Bell Centre.
Elias Lindholm and Jeff Skinner also scored for Carolina (32-27-13), which won at the Bell Centre for the first time since Feb. 13, 2012.
Alex Galchenyuk scored for Montreal.
Eddie Lack, facing the Canadiens for the first time in his career, made 21 saves to help his team extend its point streak to nine games. Carey Price stopped 19 shots for Montreal (41-24-9), which dropped its second straight.
Galchenyuk had a chance to snap a nine-game goal-less drought early on when he had a wide-open net on the rebound of a Jeff Petry shot but Hurricanes center Derek Ryan slid just in time to keep the puck out of his net.
He made the most of another chance a few minutes later on a 2-on-1 with Andrew Shaw, taking a cross-ice feed and roofing it stick side on Lack at 6:46 of the first period.
The Hurricanes tied it late in the frame on the power play. Lindholm extended his point streak to nine games when Teuvo Teravainen found him at the side of the net for an easy tap-in.
Shots were few and far between for the first half of the second period, with both sides sitting on a shot each through the first seven and a half minutes. The visitors started to put more pucks on the net in the latter half and, with 39 seconds remaining, Stempniak floated a backhander from the slot into the back of the net.
Stempniak notched his second of the night 5:11 into the third period. Jeff Skinner took advantage of a sliding Brandon Davidson to send a tape-to-tape feed over to the veteran winger for the re-direct into the net.
Skinner scored for the fourth straight game with an empty-net goal.
NOTES: Montreal LW Andreas Martinsen dressed for the first time in six games while D Brandon Davidson drew back in after two games as a healthy scratch. ... C Steve Ott, LW Dwight King and D Nathan Beaulieu were scratched for the Canadiens. ... Hurricanes LW Valentin Zykov and C Jay McClement missed their seventh and fifth game, respectively, with injury while D Matt Tennyson was a healthy scratch.