Montreal Canadiens take 3-0 stranglehold on series with Winnipeg Jets

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The upstart Canadiens are just one win shy of advancing to the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs after hammering the Winnipeg Jets 5-1 at the Bell Centre on Sunday.

Montreal got two short-handed from Joel Armia, one goal each from Corey Perry, Artturi Lehkonen and Nick Suzuki and stellar goaltending yet again from Carey Price. It now leads the best-of-seven series 3-0, with Game 4 on Monday night, also on the Canadiens’ home ice.

Montreal has now won six in a row – the final three games of the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the first three against the Jets. Winnipeg, which swept Edmonton in Round 1, is in danger of experiencing the same humiliation as the Oilers.

The Canadiens have not trailed since the puck dropped on Game 5 in the first round. They advanced with the rare feat of coming back from a 1-3 hole against Toronto and have kept rolling since.

The game ended with the 2,500 spectators on hand serenading the home team with cheers and waving white towels. The crowd included a handful of Canadien greats led by 69-year-old Guy Lafleur.

“The fans helped us big time,” said Brendan Gallagher, the Montreal forward. “I know there were only 2,500, but they were a loud 2,500.”

The Canadiens got all five goals and had 11 points spread among their four lines of forwards. The fourth line – Perry, Eric Staal and Armia – scored three and had three assists.

“On the board they are listed as the fourth, but they definitely are not a fourth line,” said Gallagher, who had one assist. “They know their strengths and have played to that. Playoff hockey has brought out the best in them.”

Montreal entered the night 6-1 in the post-season when it scores first and jumped ahead on Winnipeg again.

Perry slid a wrist shot around Connor Hellebuyck less than five minutes into the first period for a 1-0 lead. It was the third goal of the playoffs for the 36-year-old, who was signed as a free agent in December. Staal and Armia were credited with assists.

Price, meanwhile, remained difficult for the Jets to solve. He stopped all eight shots in the first period, including a one-timer from Logan Stanley and an attempt from Andrew Copp that he blocked after he slid across the crease. Blake Wheeler also got off a dangerous wrist shot seconds before the first intermission but could not beat Price.

The Canadiens extended the lead with goals by Lehkonen in a net-front scramble a little more than midway through the second period and on a short-handed rush by Armia about four minutes later. Adam Lowry finally scored for Winnipeg late in the second period to cut the disadvantage to 3-1.

The teams went to their dressing rooms with Montreal having run up a 26-12 advantage in shots.

Suzuki scored nine seconds into a power play with 11:08 remaining in the third to salt away the victory. By then, Olé Olé Olés reverberated around the arena and the Jets’ frustration boiled over. At one point they were called for three penalties in a five-minute span.

Armia had a short-handed empty-netter with 3:18 left to close out the scoring.

Hellebuyck won the Vézina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie last year but has more than met his match in Price during this year’s playoffs. Price turned away 26 of 27 shots on Sunday and has stopped 83 of 87 thus far in the series.

Hellebuyck allowed four on 32 shots in Game 3; Price has allowed four over the first three games.

“He means everything to us,” Armia said. “He is unbelievable every single game. It is a different kind of confidence that you get when he is back there.”

The Jets played their second in a row without centre Mark Scheifele. Their leading scorer is suspended for four games for a hit on Montreal’s Jake Evans at the end of Game 1. Evans is out indefinitely with a concussion. Veteran Paul Stastny, who missed the first two games of the series with an undisclosed injury, returned to the lineup but did not have a point and was called twice for penalties.

Montreal, which made the playoffs as the fourth and final team from the all-Canadian North Division, is on the verge of winning its third post-season series in two years. The Habs beat the Penguins in the 2020 Stanley Cup qualifying tournament, embarrassed the Maple Leafs, and have a stranglehold on the Jets.

In comparison, Toronto has not won a playoff series since 2004, and Edmonton has won only one playoff series since 2007.

One more victory will move the Canadiens into the third round against one of the U.S. teams. Declaring that hockey was an essential service, the Canadian government said yesterday that the winner of their series would be able to travel back and forth across the border. Players will be restricted to their hotel and will not be allowed to have any interaction with fans.

“We’ve been in this long enough to know that the hardest game to win is the last one,” Gallagher said. “We’ll enjoy this win tonight, but as soon as we wake up in the morning, we’ll have to put in the same effort to get the same results.”