Weber scores game-winner
NEW YORK Shea Weber came through with a late goal to get the NHL-leading Montreal Canadiens another big win.
Weber's power-play goal with 2:57 remaining lifted the Canadiens to their fifth straight victory, 3-2 over the New York Islanders on Wednesday night. Paul Byron and Phillip Danault also scored to help Montreal improve to 6-0-1 and remain the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss.
“It's still early but we've done some good things so far,” Weber said after getting his third goal and ninth point since being acquired in a big off-season trade with Nashville. “Got to keep winning games. It doesn't mean anything if we lose two, three in a row. We got to keep getting better every night.”
Al Montoya, who played for the Islanders from 2010-12, stopped 26 shots in his first start since Oct. 18 as the Canadiens beat New York for the seventh straight time.
“We had a slow start. Montoya played well for us, great in the first,” Weber said. “We came on maybe in the last five, six minutes of the first, played better after that. He made some big saves at the end of the third before we were able to score on the power play.”
John Tavares and Dennis Seidenberg scored for New York and Thomas Greiss had 26 saves in his second straight start and third of the season. The Islanders lost for the second time on a five-game homestand.
With the Islanders' Nick Leddy off for slashing, Weber took a pass from defenceman Jeff Petry and fired a shot from the point for the tiebreaking goal. It was just the second powerplay goal in 23 opportunities given up by New York's league-leading penalty-killing unit.
“I knew (Petry) was going to pass it over,” Weber said. “It was kind of rolling, so I just wanted to make sure I got good wood on it. I think (Islanders defenceman Travis) Hamonic went down in front of the goal and it just found a way through.”
RANGERS 5, BRUINS 2
Brandon Pirri scored twice to help New York beat Boston.
Rick Nash, Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vesey also scored for New York, and Henrik Lundqvist stopped 27 shots. The Rangers won their third straight game, overcoming a 2-0 deficit to improve to 5-2-0.
David Pastrnak and Austin Czarina scored for Boston.
Zane McIntyre made 26 saves in his first NHL start. He was called up prior to Boston's 50 home loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night to back up Malcolm Subban due to injuries to Tuukka Risk and Anton Khudobin.