Brendan Gallagher and Jamie Benn scored in the first period as the Montreal Canadiens posted a third straight win with a 3-2 victory over the expansion Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.
Max Pacioretty also scored for Montreal (7-8-1), which has gone 5-1-0 in its last six games after starting the season 2-7-1. Goaltender Charlie Lindgren, called up from AHL Laval last week when Carey Price suffered a lower body injury, won a second game in a row and has now won all five of his NHL starts over the last three seasons.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Erik Huala scored for Vegas (9-5-1), which ended a six-game road trip with a 1-4-1 record. The Knights were coming off a shootout loss in Toronto on Monday night and were playing their sixth game in nine days.
The Canadiens jumped on the Knights early and outshot them 13-2 in the opening period. But Vegas battled back and had a 31-28 edge for the game.
Tomas Plekanec won a race to a dump-in and fed Gallagher alone at the side of the net for his seventh goal at 8:24. Benn got his first on a point shot through heavy traffic at 10:55.
Vegas got one back when Bellemare deked past Jeff Petry and beat Lindgren from close range at 17:41.
Pacioretty was at the doorstep to redirect a Petry shot past Maxime Legace 3:31 into the second frame.
The Knights had Legace pulled for an extra attacker when Jonathan Marchessault fed a cross-ice pass that Huala one-timed into an open side with 1:17 left to play.
Montreal centre Jonathan Drouin did not play in the third period due to an upper body injury.
