Caufield powers Canadiens to 3-1 victory over Panthers

MONTREAL (AP) — Cole Caufield scored his team-leading 33rd goal and added an assist to help the Montreal Canadiens beat the Florida Panthers 3-1 on Saturday night.

Patrik Laine and Christian Dvorak — with his 100th career goal — also scored for Montreal. Sam Montembeault made 21 saves, including a windmill glove stop on Carter Verhaeghe late.

Mackie Samoskevich scored for Florida, which lost for the second time in nine games. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 12 shots.

The Canadiens, who were coming off a 5-4 overtime loss to Seattle on Wednesday, remained within a point of being in playoff position with 71 points.

Laine opened the scoring with a power-play goal 5:15 into the game, ripping a wrist shot over Bobrovsky’s left shoulder for his 16th — and 13th with the man-advantage — in 36 games.

Alex Newhook appeared to make it 2-0 off a feed from Suzuki, but the goal was overturned after the Panthers challenged for goalie interference.

Caufield followed soon after with a goal at 15:56 of the first, before Samoskevich tied it in the second.

Dvorak deflected a point shot from David Savard to make it 3-1 at 8:11 of the third.

Takeaways

Canadiens: Montreal’s first line stayed hot, even though Nick Suzuki was held off the scoresheet. Caufield’s two points and Juraj Slafkovsky’s assist gave the top trio a combined 40 points in 10 games since Feb. 22.

Panthers: The defending Stanley Cup champions played their third consecutive game without Matthew Tkachuk (lower body), deadline acquisition Brad Marchand (upper body) and defenseman Aaron Ekblad (suspension).

Key moment

After Dvorak made it 3-1, Canadiens fans started doing the wave and chanting “Olé, Olé, Olé” for 10 minutes — including during an entire TV timeout.

Key stat

Lane Hutson became the fourth-fastest defenseman to get 50 NHL assists. The rookie did it in 68 games, behind only Larry Murphy (62), Mark Howe (65) and Stefan Persson (66). Hutson is also the second-fastest player in Canadiens history to reach the mark after Vincent Damphousse (66).

Up next

The Panthers visit the New York Islanders on Sunday, and the Canadiens host the Senators on Tuesday.

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL

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