The Montreal Canadiens took a break from their habit of getting shut out in the first period, thanks to two early goals against a generous Dallas Stars defence in Montreal Tuesday, and then held on to a 3-2 victory.

The Habs opened the scoring in an unusual manner as a harmless-looking shot by Alexei Emelin managed to get by Kari Lehtonen's left pad. Alex Galchenyuk soon after doubled the Canadiens’ lead to 2-0 on a backhand after speeding past a Dallas defender.

The Stars managed to reduce the lead with just three seconds remaining in the first frame as Jamie Benn scored his on a wrist shot from the faceoff past Carey Price.

Brendan Gallagher then responded with a power play goal at 4:37 of the second period after Stars’ Ryan Garbutt was assessed a hooking minor.

Soon after Alexei Emelin was handed a game misconduct for his check on Jason Spezza. That led to the Stars' second goal as Patrick Eaves netted just his fourth of the season on the Dallas five-minute man advantage.

That goal made it 3-2 but there would be no more scoring, as both sides left clean sheets in the third period, in spite of a number of penalties being assessed against both teams.

Prust, Beaulieu, Gonchard, Subban, Markov all earned assists on the Habs' goals.

The Dallas Stars outshot the Habs 42-26 and also narrowly missed on a number of open nets and goalmouth scrambles.

The Habs rose to 30-13-3 with the victory. They next play Thursday against the Rangers in New York before returning for four straight home games.

Carey Price turned back 42 shots in the vicotry and received loud applause when named the game's first star.

He gave credit to teammates for blocking many shots on a 5-3 man advantage late in the game. "You can't teach that," he said, giving tribute to him teammates' selflessness.

“You could see it was a first game back after five days off," said Coach Michel Therrien who credited a fine effort from Carey Price. "The chemistry and concentration wasn’t there.”

“It seems that even when he shouldn’t be making saves he is,” said P.K. Subban about Price’s effort.

Winger P.A. Parenteau missed the game with concussion symptoms and was replaced in the lineup by Christan Thomas.