Petry leads Canadiens past Ducks
MONTREAL -- Jeff Petry scored a goal and recorded two assists to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
Paul Byron, Tomas Plekanec, Max Pacioretty and Chris Terry also scored for the Canadiens (21-7-4).
Andrew Cogliano scored the lone goal for Anaheim (17-12-5).
Montreal's Carey Price stopped 12 shots while Jonathan Bernier made 29 saves for the Ducks.
Cogliano opened the scoring off a face-off at 5:19 of the first period. Ryan Kesler got tangled up with Montreal's Torrey Mitchell on the draw, with neither able to get the puck to a teammate. Cogliano found the loose puck among a sea of skates and fired it short side on Price.
Byron matched a career-high with his 11th of the season with a minute remaining in the first. Jeff Petry drove down the left wing, creating a 2-on-1 with the speedy winger, and wired a shot that Bernier stopped. But the rebound went to Byron on the right side and Bernier was late in trying to dive over, leaving a wide-open cage.
Byron reached the mark in his 32nd game; he set the mark last season in 62 games with Montreal.
The Canadiens' struggling power play finally connected to put the Canadiens ahead 2-1 at 12:35 of the second. Byron surprised the Ducks with a pass from the left circle to Plekanec on the other side, and the center was ready, sending a one-timer past Bernier.
A poor clearing attempt by Anaheim set the table for Petry's seventh of the season. Bernier tried to rim the puck around the boards but Nick Ritchie, along the left wall, couldn't get his stick on it. It went to Petry at the blue line, who scored his fourth goal in the past five games at 4:32 of the third period.
Pacioretty notched Montreal's second power-play goal of the night just over four minutes later when, on a 2-on-1, he sent a wrister from the right circle. It marked the first time since Nov. 22 that the Canadiens scored twice with the man advantage.
Terry scored his first in a Montreal uniform when he lifted a shot over Bernier from in close.
NOTES: Ducks C Andrew Cogliano suited up for his 738th consecutive game, passing Jay Bouwmeester for the fifth-longest streak in NHL history and the longest of any kind since Steve Larmer dressed in his 884th straight on April 15, 1993. ... Montreal D Andrei Markov missed the game with a lower-body injury suffered on Saturday in Washington, marking the first time since 2011-12 that he's sat out a game due to injury. ... Canadiens RW Sven Andrighetto missed his second straight with an upper-body injury. ... With Markov out, D Zach Redmond drew back into the line-up after sitting as a healthy scratch on Saturday. ... Anaheim scratched RW Jared Boll and D Shea Theodore.