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MONTREAL (Ticker) -- Martin St. Louis capped a memorable day with a career night.
St. Louis scored two goals and added two assists as the
Tampa Bay Lightning
pulled away for a 4-1 victory over the
Montreal Canadiens
, who had a season-high six-game unbeaten streak snapped.
A Quebec native, St. Louis was voted to the Eastern Conference All-Star team before the game. The diminutive winger celebrated by beating goaltender
Jose Theodore
from the high slot just under five minutes into the second period to snap a 1-1 tie and put Tampa Bay ahead for good.
"Yes, it is a big thing being named to the All-Star team, but I'll think about that in February, when I go play in the game," St. Louis said. "Right now, I'm just hoping to help my own team."
St. Louis capped the scoring at 3:41 of the third period, putting another wrist shot through Theodore's pads for his 14th goal.
"We knew that Montreal was a hot team and that Theodore was playing very well," St. Louis said. "We had to get him early and obviously, scoring a shorthanded goal in the second period was a big thing for our team."
St. Louis also set up second-period goals by
Fredrik Modin
and
Ruslan Fedotenko
and leads the team with 22 assists. He had a pair of three-point games this season, bringing his career total to nine.
"Tonight was a great team effort," Lightning center
Vincent Lecavalier
said. "We got on top and everything else worked. We were on the puck all night."
Tampa Bay is 15-0-0 when scoring at least three goals but won for just the third time in 10 games (3-5-2). The Lightning have won nine of the last 14 meetings with Montreal (9-3-2).
"It was a bad game. It's due to happen," Canadiens defenseman
Patrice Brisebois
said. "I hope we got it out of our system. We had no spark tonight."
Pierre Dagenais
had the lone goal for the Canadiens, who also had a six-game home unbeaten streak stopped.
"Considering the way we have been playing the past couple of weeks, I can't believe we came out of the gate so poorly," Montreal defenseman
Stephane Quintal
said. "Every time I looked up, a player from Tampa had the puck. It seemed that the Lightning wanted the puck more than we did."
Theodore had allowed just eight goals in his previous seven games.
"The puck just wasn't sticking to our sticks tonight," Theodore said. "I'm very upset about the way the team gave up in the third period."
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