Canadiens goaltender Jaroslav Halak makes a save against the Rangers, one of 32 he made Saturday en route to his third shutout of the season. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)
Michael Cammalleri scored two goals and set up two others as the Montreal Canadiens used a four-goal second period to post a 6-0 victory over the Rangers and hand New York a second straight shutout loss Saturday night.
A three-goal outburst in a 3:39 span chased Rangers starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist at 6:17 of the second period in favour of Matt Zaba, who allowed two goals on 16 shots in his first taste of NHL action. Lundqvist was beaten four times on 15 shots, while Jaroslav Halak made 32 saves for his third shutout of the season.
Maxim Lapierre, with his first in 29 games, and Benoit Pouliot also scored in the second for Montreal. Scott Gomez got one in the first and Tomas Plekanec scored in the third for Montreal (25-23-5), which avenged a 6-2 loss to the Rangers last week in New York. The Canadiens were coming off a rare win 3-1 in New Jersey on Friday night.
The Rangers (24-21-7), beaten 2-0 in Philadelphia on Thursday, are 2-4-1 in their last seven and were shut out in four of those games. Montreal and New York are now tied with 55 points each, but the Rangers have a game in hand.
The Canadiens are one of the best 4-on-4 teams in the NHL and they had two chances to show it in the first 10 minutes. On the second, Montreal won the faceoff in the New York zone and Gomez banged in Jaroslav Spacek’s point shot at 9:05. That gave Gomez 16 points in his last 15 games.
They were 4-on-4 again 2:35 into the second period when Cammalleri opted not to go off on a line change and instead went up and fired in a pass from Spacek.
Behind-the-back pass
Lapierre batted Mathieu Darche’s rebound out of the air and in off Lundqvist at 4:37, and Cammalleri took a behind-the-back pass from Brian Gionta and scored his 26th of the season at 6:17 to chase Lundqvist.
Alex Kovalev led the team with 26 goals in all of last season.
Pouliot made a deft go to deflect Cammalleri’s pass behind Zaba from the slot on a power play at 10:59. It was Pouliot’s 10th goal in 15 games since joining the Canadiens in a trade — one more than he had in 65 games with the Minnesota Wild.
Plekanec was parked at the side of the net to lift a puck in off the post at 12:19 of the third for Montreal’s second power-play goal of the night to round out the scoring.
Before Saturday, Montreal had not scored more than five goals in a game in a game this season.
Canadiens defenceman Paul Mara sat out with an upper-body injury and Ryan O’Byrne returned to the lineup. Forward Sergei Kostitsyn returned after missing 10 games with an ankle injury.
For New York, Ales Kotalik and Donald Brashear were scratched.
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Leafs goaltender Jonas Gustavsson looks back at the net as Michael Frolik raises his stick to celebrate the goal by Cory Stillman of the Florida Panthers on Saturday. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)