Yes indeed, Patches, that goal was long overdue

Max Pacioretty seemed a tad put off when a Sportsnet reporter asked him if he could remember his last power-play goal.

“Did you have to bring that up?” Pacioretty said after he scored the overtime winner — on a power play — to give the Canadiens a 5-4 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday at Bell MTS Place.

When the subject came up in the dressing room a few minutes later, Pacioretty asked: “Has it been that long?”

It has. When Pacioretty earned assists on both of Andrew Shaw’s power-play goals earlier in the game, they ended a 36-game point drought on the power play. His goal ended a run of 39 games without a power-play goal.

The Canadiens were handed a gift in overtime when Tyler Myers drew a two-minute penalty for cross-checking Alex Galchenyuk. That gave the Canadiens a 4-on-3 advantage.

“It wasn’t exactly the way we drew it up on the 4-on-3, but it’s tough because you don’t practise it that much,” Pacioretty said. “The kicker is when to have the net presence and when to be on the perimeter. I was in front on two shots, but I didn’t take away (goaltender Connor Hellebuyck’s) eyes. On the winning goal, two guys (Galchenyuk and Shea Weber) made great plays and I was able to get to a loose puck and bury it.”

Pacioretty missed a golden opportunity to end the game earlier in the overtime. Phillip Danault set him up on a 2-on-1 rush, but Hellebuyck made one of his 45 saves as Montreal outshot Winnipeg 50-23.

The Montreal power play went 3-for-6 and Pacioretty said the difference was second effort.

“The shots have been there, but we haven’t had the net presence,” he said. “Shawsie had two big efforts on his goals, we won a lot of wall battles and battles in front.”

With Carey Price at least temporarily on the shelf with a lowerbody injury, Al Montoya picked up the win. It was far from a perfect game, but after the Canadiens fell behind 4-2 early in the third period, he stopped the last eight shots he faced, including three in overtime.

“When you give up a goal, you just have to put it out of your mind and stop the next shot,” said Montoya, 2-1 on the season.

Julien said the win took away some of the bad taste left from Thursday’s 6-3 loss in Minnesota.

“We’ve won four of our last six games, but that last game sort of tarnishes what we’ve done,” Julien said. “But I liked the way we bounced back tonight, the way we handled adversity and win a hockey game.”