Brian Gionta and David Desharnais scored power-play goals and Carey Price made 26 saves as the Montreal Canadiens extended their winning streak to three with a 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.
Lars Eller and Tomas Plekanec also scored for Montreal, which won 2-1 in Boston on Thursday night. The Canadiens improved to 4-5-2 after winning only one of their first eight games.
Montreal's winning streak began after assistant coach Perry Pearn was fired Wednesday prior to the team's 5-1 win over Philadelphia.
Tyler Seguin scored with 54.4 seconds remaining to draw the Bruins within one. Milan Lucic also scored for the reigning Stanley Cup champions, who lost their third in a row. Tuukka Rask stopped 23 shots in his third start.
The crowd of 21,273 booed when Tim Thomas replaced Rask after Seguin's goal, allowing head coach Claude Julien to buy his players a brief rest. Plekanec scored into an empty net with 12 seconds left.
Boston, which eliminated the Canadiens in the first round last spring, is off to a 3-7 start and is last in the Eastern Conference.
The Bruins were being outshot 9-3 when Brad Marchand hit the left post with a wrist shot from the top of the slot at 13:46.
Gionta made it 1-0 at 15:26 with his second goal on Montreal's first power-play opportunity. The Canadiens' captain deflected Plekanec's slap shot from just inside the blue line past Rask.
Eller made it 2-0 at 16:42 when he sent a wrist shot over Rask's glove from the left faceoff circle for his first of the season.
Desharnais scored his second goal on another man advantage 12:24 into the second to increase the lead to 3-0. Desharnais scored off a scramble in front with 2 seconds left in the second of overlapping minors against Boston that gave Montreal a brief two-man advantage.
A turnover in the Canadiens' zone led to Lucic's goal at 16:28. Nathan Horton stripped the puck off Eller as the Montreal center tried to carry the puck up the middle and fed a pass to Lucic, who drove a slap shot past Price for his third goal.
Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban goaded Lucic into taking a slashing penalty behind the play at 18:51.
The Bruins enjoyed a 56-second 5-on-3 advantage early in the third. Montreal coach Jacques Martin used his timeout after Gionta was called for tripping 2:09 into the third with Eller already in the penalty box.
Canadiens defenseman Josh Gorges sprawled across the left side of the crease to deny Lucic a scoring chance.
Another undisciplined penalty ended the rest of the Bruins' power play when Nathan Horton was sent off for cross-checking Hal Gill shortly after the Montreal defenseman blocked him out in front of the net.
NOTES: The Bruins have scored two goals or fewer eight times this season, including seven of their past eight games. ... Canadiens LW Mathieu Darche played his 200th game. ... Montreal returned RW Aaron Palushaj to AHL Hamilton earlier in the day.
