MONTREAL - 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.
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.
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).
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.
"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.
Arizona plays the third of its five-game road trip at Toronto on Thursday.
This report by 好色tvwas first published Feb. 27, 2024.
