MONTREAL 鈥� Sam Montembeault put forth quite the effort, but opted to deflect praise to his teammates.
Montembeault stopped 36 shots to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 4-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes 3-1 on Tuesday. The win snapped a five-game losing streak for the Canadiens, while the Coyotes are now winless in 13 games.聽
鈥淭hey had a lot of shots but even with that we鈥檝e got some guys like (Mike) Matheson and (Johnathan) Kovacevic, they blocked a lot of shots too,鈥� said Montembeault.聽
鈥淭hey鈥檝e got a lot of small shifty players that can move the puck in the offensive zone and I鈥檓 happy that we contained them to just two goals and got the win.鈥�
Joel Armia, Jordan Harris, Tanner Pearson and Nick Suzuki, with an empty-net goal, scored for Montreal (23-28-8).聽
Harris put the Canadiens ahead 2-0 with just his second of the season at 4:52 of the second period.
鈥淚t was a big goal for us there in the second period,鈥� Montembeault said of Harris's goal. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 get too many chances to go on a 2-on-1 like this but he took his chance and it was a great shot.鈥�
Harris later set up Pearson to give Montreal a 3-1 edge 5:14 into the third period, and proved to be the winner.
鈥淚 forgot who was on the boards but they were kind of tied up and I saw Tanner cutting through the middle,鈥� said Harris. 鈥淗e made a great play, kind of turned on the jets there going around him and then I couldn鈥檛 really see great from the bench because I was changing there so I鈥檇 have to see the replay to see how it went in.鈥�
Alex Kerfoot and Nick Bjugstad scored for Arizona (23-30-5), while Connor Ingram stopped 17 shots.
The Coyotes outshot the Canadiens 38-21.
鈥淲e had emotion, we had passion, there was a good feeling on the bench,鈥� said coach Andr茅 Tourigny. 鈥淲e had 77 per cent of the scoring chances, a lot of quality shots but their goaltender stand tall.聽
"We could have had a little more traffic in front of him and we didn鈥檛 reload property on their goals. It wasn鈥檛 a perfect game but overall I don't want to find excuses.鈥�
Tourigny said his team played a disciplined game but credited Montembeault for shutting the door on all three of the Coyotes' power plays.
鈥淥ur power play had some good looks,鈥� said Tourigny. 鈥�(Nick Schmatlz) had some chances from the slot but I think the goalie made his biggest saves when we were on the power play.鈥�
UP NEXT
Montreal begins a four-game road trip Thursday in Florida.聽
Arizona plays the third of its five-game road trip at Toronto on Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 27, 2024.
Pat Hickey, The Canadian Press
