Pens make losing a Hab-it
MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens came up with a strong effort to rebound after absorbing some tough hits this weekend.
Chris Higgins and Maxim Lapierre scored second-period goals and Andrei Kostitsyn scored with 4:15 left to seal Montreal's 4-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins Tuesday night.
Hamrlik scored in the first period and assisted on Lapierre's goal 15:07 into the second, the third straight goal by the Canadiens, who took a 3-1 lead.
"Tonight was a good example of how to play with all 20 guys together," Hamrlik said. "I think against Boston we played well, but not well enough."
Evgeni Malkin drew Pittsburgh within 3-2 midway through the third when he scored for the third game in a row for his team-leading 22nd goal of the season.
Kostitsyn, who was reunited with linemates Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec, scored with a second-effort shot in the goal mouth at 15:45 to restore Montreal's two-goal lead.
"I thought that line was pretty good tonight," Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau said. "They played against (Sidney) Crosby and Malkin pretty much right up to the third period, when they separated both of them, and they did a good job."
Carey Price made 23 saves as Montreal won for the second time in three games following a season-high four-game losing streak.
Penguins left wing Luca Caputi opened the scoring 2:30 into his NHL debut. Caputi, a 20-year-old who was called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL on Monday, got credit for the opening goal when he scored off a goal mouth scramble after he drove the net on his first shift.
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 31 shots for Pittsburgh, which lost its third in a row (0-2-1), and fourth in five.
"We got beat by high speed," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. "Our guys looked really, really slow tonight. We can't give up four goals on the road and then score more than two. You need more desperation from a lot of players — some players were a no-show."
Montreal's lineup took a double hit two days earlier as both center Robert Lang and left wing Guillaume Latendresse were lost to injury in the third period of Sunday's 3-1 loss to the Bruins.
Lang had surgery Sunday evening to repair a torn Achilles' tendon and is out indefinitely. Latendresse suffered an upper-body injury — likely to his left shoulder — when he slammed into the boards late in the game.
Notes: Toronto's Gus Bodnar holds the record for the fastest goal by a player making his NHL debut. Bodnar scored 15 seconds into the Maple Leafs' 5-2 win over the New York Rangers on Oct. 30, 1943.
