Price backstops Habs over Sens

However poorly Carey Price played early in the season, he is making up for it now.

Price made 27 saves for his third win in as many starts since he missed 10 games with a lower body injury as the Montreal Canadiens downed the slumping Ottawa Senators 2-1 on Wednesday night.

The star goaltender, who began the campaign 3-7-1 with a feeble 3.77 goals-against average, is 3-0-0 and has allowed only two goals on 102 shots since he returned last week.

“He’s been our best player,” said forward Andrew Shaw. “He’s calm, he’s cool, he’s making big-time saves and working hard for us.

“We’re trying to do the same for him. Even when they dump it in he’s like a third defenceman for us, moving the puck and getting it out of our end.”

Jonathan Drouin scored on his first NHL penalty shot and Phillip Danault also had a goal for Montreal (11-12-3), which ended a threegame homestand. They begin a set of back-toback games with the Red Wings tonight in Detroit.

Mark Stone scored his 14th goal for Ottawa (89-6), which has lost seven games in a row — the club’s longest drought since it went 06-1 from Jan. 21 to Feb. 7, 2012.

The Senators have not won since sweeping a pair of games from Colorado in Stockholm, Sweden, Nov. 10-11 and now face six more road games starting Friday night against the New York Islanders. Defenceman Erik Karlsson went without a point for a seventh game in a row.

The Senators had chances, but couldn’t score on three power plays in the second period.

“We played pretty well right from the start of the game,” said forward Zack Smith. “You could tell it was two desperate teams.

“If we had capitalized on any one of the power plays we would have won. But same thing. A couple of missed assignments. A couple of lapses, and that’s the NHL. That will cost you the game.”

Ottawa goalie Mike Condon, pressed into service by Montreal when Price missed most of the 2015-16 season with an injury, started against the Canadiens for the first time and faced 31 shots.