Taylor Hall scored twice, while Sebastian Aho had a goal with two assists, as the Carolina Hurricanes beat the host Montreal Canadiens 6-4 on Tuesday night.
Mark Jankowski and Eric Robinson each recorded a goal with an assist, and Jaccob Slavin added two helpers for the Hurricanes, who snapped a four-game regular-season losing streak to Montreal by winning their second straight game on the young season.
Zack Bolduc had two goals and Nick Suzuki notched a goal and an assist for the Canadiens, who dropped their home opener to the team that eliminated them in last season’s Eastern Conference finals.
Carolina wasted no time opening the scoring. Just 2:25 into the contest, the Canes took advantage of a Montreal defensive zone turnover and Jackson Blake’s slot shot was deflected in by Hall.
The Canadiens, though, answered less than a minute later when Bolduc backhanded home a rebound. Sixty-four seconds later, Montreal took a 2-1 lead, when Suzuki beat Carolina goaltender Brandon Bussi (16 saves) high on the glove side.
But, with 10:38 left in the first period, the Hurricanes tied it when a net-front Robinson got a successful piece of Jalen Chatfield’s wrister off a face-off win.
Montreal regained the lead and completed the high-scoring first period when a wide-open Bolduc beat Bussi for a power-play goal with 7:06 remaining.
Carolina leveled things again at 3:56 into the second period when a power-play push resulted in Aho beating Montreal netminder Jakub Dobes (28 saves).
The Hurricanes took their first lead of the night with 6:36 remaining in the middle period when Jankowski elevated an up-close backhand past Dobes for a 4-3 edge.
The Hurricanes outshot the Canadiens 29-10 through the first two periods.
Hall, meanwhile, added some insurance for Carolina when he sent a blind backhand, while being checked, from the slot past a seemingly-screened Dobes with 7:39 remaining in regulation.
Montreal inched closer when Juraj Slafkovsky pounced on a loose puck and sent it by Bussi, who was down on the ice, with 3:03 left to play.
However, Andrei Svechnikov’s empty-netter sealed Carolina’s victory.
