MONTREAL - Martin Hanzal and Shane Doan scored in the first period and the Arizona Coyotes held on for a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson also scored for the Coyotes (10-8-1), who ended a two-game losing run.
Max Pacioretty and Dale Weise, who scored with 51 seconds left in the game, replied for the Canadiens (14-4-2), who are without a regulation time win in the last four games (1-2-1) and have surrendered 16 goals in that time. Montreal outshot Arizona 33-20.
Arizona scored three times on its first six shots on Mike Condon and Montreal fell behind by 3-0 for a third game in a row. But while the Canadiens were able to come back for a 4-3 overtime win over Vancouver in their last outing, the Coyotes and goalie Mike Smith held off a late charge this time.
The Canadiens gave up an early goal for a fifth straight game when Montreal native Anthony Duclair used a burst of speed to set up Hanzal for a goal into an open side at 5:04.
A puck hopped over Brendan Gallagher's stick and Tobias Rieder was able to whip a shot off Condon's shoulder that fell to Doan for a tap-in goal at 9:17.
