Carey Price makes a stick save while teammate Alexander Radulov defends against Daniel Sedin during Wednesday’s game.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
Carey Price made 42 saves for his first shutout of the season as the NHL-best Montreal Canadiens beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-0 on Wednesday night to extend their winning streak to eight games.
Nathan Beaulieu, Torrey Mitchell and Alexander Radulov, into an empty net, scored for Montreal (9-0-1), the only team still undefeated in regulation time this year. Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher each had two assists.
Ryan Miller stopped 19-of-21 shots for the Canucks (4-5-1), who are now winless in their last six games.
Price was brilliant throughout, making keys saves look easy to keep the Canucks at bay. The Habs goalie made more than 40 saves for the first time this season. His previous high this year was 38.
The Canadiens improved to 7-0-1 in their last eight home games against Vancouver.
The Canucks are on a bad stretch since winning their first four games of the year going 0-5-1 in their last six and have been outscored 21-7 over that stretch.
Montreal hardly looked like the league's best team for much of the game. The Habs were disorganized and struggled to generate any momentum in the first period. The Canucks won most puck battles while Montreal failed to string passes together. Shots were 13-3 for Vancouver after 20 minutes.
Price kept Montreal in the game to start the second period, robbing winger Sven Baertschi from close range. The visitors led 24-3 in shots before the Canadiens got their act together midway through the second.
Following sustained pressure by Vancouver, Beaulieu scored on a fast break for Montreal. The defenceman cashed in a rebound at 12:22 after Brendan Gallagher's shot from a tight angle bounced off Miller and landed in the crease.
The goal was Beaulieu's first of the season and it came on Montreal's 11th shot of the game.
The Habs doubled their lead in the last minute of the second period as Mitchell scored his team-high fifth goal of the year. Mitchell came storming down the wing on a 2 on 1 with Phillip Danault, who found his streaking teammate with a cross-crease pass. Miller, who was playing the shot, had no chance on the goal.
Mitchell is making the most of his scoring opportunities this season. The fourth-line centre has five goals on nine shots.
Radulov added the empty-netter at 18:05 of the third period.
The Canucks had three players back from injury. Forwards Alexandre Burrows (neck) and Derek Dorsett (shoulder) and defenceman Christopher Tanev (lower-body) were all in the lineup.