Felipe Martins and Marco Di Vaio scored in the first half and the Montreal Impact beat the Houston Dynamo 2-0 Wednesday night.
The Eastern Conference-leading Impact (9-3-2) improved to 6-0-1 at Saputo Stadium and won a fourth in a row at home in MLS play.
Houston (6-5-4) fell to 0-3-2 in its last five matches.
The Impact created chance after chance in the first half before switching to a more defensive approach against a Dynamo team missing some key players. Houston's Boniek Garcia (Honduras) and Brad Davis (United States) missed the game while playing for their national teams.
Daniele Paponi missed two good chances in the first eight minutes and had another called offside.
Only 13 minutes in, Patrice Bernier sent a clever side-foot pass over the defense and Felipe chested it down and scored his third of the season.
The Dynamo wasted a chance to tie it in the 20th minute when Matteo Ferrari was called for a late tackle in the area on Will Bruin. But Giles Barnes' hooked the ball from the penalty spot well over the net.
Then it was Corey Ashe's turn to misfire as he shanked an attempt to play the ball back to Houston goalie Tally Hall in the 32nd. Di Vaio ran it down, went in alone and calmly chipped in his 10th of the season - including ninth at home.
Houston had a good chance after a free kick in the 58th, but Warren Creavalle's left-footed shot went just over the bar.
Di Vaio had the crowd on its feet in the 62nd as he headed Nyassi's pass off the bar, then recovered the ball but shot just wide.
The crowd booed when Brian Ching subbed in for Barnes in the 78th. Ching was claimed by Montreal in the 2012 expansion draft but asked to be dealt back to Houston.
