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TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Less than a minute into the finale of a three-game road trip, the
Montreal Canadiens
seemed headed for another disaster. Nearly two hours later, they headed for a happy flight home.
Yanic Perreault
scored twice and
Jose Theodore
stopped 35 shots as the Canadiens struck for four unanswered goals en route to a 5-2 victory over the
Tampa Bay Lightning
.
Montreal picked up four of a possible six points on its trip and improved to 5-2-2 in its last nine contests. It could have been a perfect trek if the Canadiens hadn't blown a lead in Friday's 4-2 loss to Florida.
Montreal moved over the .500 mark for the third time in a week. The last two times the Canadiens have climbed above .500 they have blown leads in the third period. The players agree they need to start proving they are not a mediocre team.
"We are a better team than .500," said defenseman
Sheldon Souray
, who had a career-high three assists. "We have to start to prove it. Games like this will make us believe in ourselves. We stayed with it despite falling behind. We had a tough night last night, but this was a wakeup call tonight."
"These are the kinds of games that are going to be a real plus for us as we try to turn the corner," Perreault added. "We know we are better than just a .500 team. This kind of game should give us a ton of momentum."
Besides hitting the break-even mark, the Canadiens also produced one of their better nights on offense. They scored more than three goals for just the seventh time in 31 games this season.
It looked like it would be another tough night for Montreal as rookie Dimitry Afansenkov scored off an odd-man rush just 59 seconds into the game. But the Lightning lost momentum and the lead in a span of 45 seconds.
Perreault hadn't scored in nine games, but he got a favorable bounce on a power play and evened it at 1-1 with five minutes to play in the first. On the next shift, defenseman
Stephane Quintal
used a screen from a teammate to give Montreal the lead for good.
Instead of sitting on the lead, the Canadiens struck quickly in the second as
Niklas Sundstrom
scored the eventual game-winner just 10 seconds into the period.
Captain
Saku Koivu
added insurance over 10 minutes later and Perreault capped his third two-goal game of the season with an empty-netter.
"We haven't played that well when falling behind," said Theodore, who moved to 4-1-2 in his last seven decisions. "So this was a nice win for us. We needed to get jump-started, especially after our loss last night. This was a nice way to go back home."
The only negative for Montreal may have been a second straight shaky third period. One night after the Canadiens allowed 20 shots and lost, Theodore withstood a 19-shot barrage, surrendering only
Dave Andreychuk
's tally with 2:53 to play.
For the Lightning, there were plenty of negatives, especially after the first few minutes. They tied a season high with their third straight loss, and dropped to 2-7-2 in their last 11 contests and 0-3-1 in their last four on home ice.
"The first five or six minutes, I thought we were going to score five or six goals," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "We just can't generate any kind of consistency on offense. I think some guys played hard, but for this team to win, everyone needs to play hard."
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