Luongo, Panthers Beat Canadiens 4-1 For Fourth Straight Win
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MONTREAL (AP) — Roberto Luongo made 32 saves and Aleksander Barkov got his 28th goal to help the Florida Panthers beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 on Tuesday night for their fourth straight win.
Nick Bjugstad, Greg McKegg and Jiri Hudler also scored for playoff-bound Florida, and Jaromir Jagr had two assists.
Alex Galchenyuk got his 28th goal for Montreal, and Mike Condon stopped 15 of 19 shots.
Florida swept the season series against Montreal, winning all four games this season.
Barkov scored just 10 seconds into the contest, tying a Panthers franchise record set in 1996 for fastest goal to start a game.
Florida set a franchise record with its 99th point in a 4-3 win over Toronto on Monday night.
Luongo got his 34th victory of the season by making several acrobatic saves. The Panthers goaltender robbed Lars Eller without his stick in the second and made a great toe save on Brendan Gallagher later in the same frame.
The 37-year-old got goal support early.
Right after the opening faceoff, Barkov took a shovel pass from Jagr at the blue line and beat Condon from the circle on the first shot of the game.
Galchenyuk got the equalizer for Montreal on the power play at 11:00 of the second period, beating Luongo glove side with a one-timer after a smart no-look pass from Max Pacioretty.
The Habs finished the night 1 for 6 with the man advantage and have scored just five power-play goals in their last 20 games.
It looked like the teams would be deadlocked after 40 minutes, but Bjugstad scored his 15th of the season with 13 seconds remaining in the second frame — a one-timer on the power play.
Montreal went into the third period down a goal despite outshooting Florida 27-11.
McKegg added Florida's third goal at 8:58 of the final period after scooping up a rebound that Condon failed to secure with his glove. Hudler made it 4-1 with less than 2 minutes remaining.
Called up from the St. John's IceCaps on Sunday, enforcer John Scott made his debut for the Canadiens. Scott finished with a minus-1 rating and 2 penalty minutes in 9:00 of ice time.
Panthers defenseman Brian Campbell played in his 1,000th NHL game.
NOTES: Rookie defenseman Ryan Johnston made his NHL debut. Johnston is the 15th defenseman to play for Montreal this season. ... Stefan Matteau and Mike Brown were healthy scratches for the Canadiens. ... The Habs announced Brett Lernout (knee) would not play again this season.
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