Music: {allcanada} Tokarski, Canadiens hold off Panthers

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

{allcanada} Tokarski, Canadiens hold off Panthers

The Hangover Part III / Nothing Was the Same - Drake

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Montreal Canadiens gave red-hot goalie Carey Price the night off Tuesday but kept rolling.

PA Parenteau scored the only goal in the shootout, and backup goalie Dustin Tokarski made 36 saves when the Canadiens defeated the Florida Panthers 2-1 at BB&T Center on Tuesday.

Tokarski, making his first start since Nov. 29, stopped three Panthers in the shootout, clinching the victory when he stopped Jonathan Huberdeau's wrist shot in the bottom of the third round.

Price started the previous 11 games and allowed nine goals in his past seven.

Parenteau, 4-for-6 in the shootout this season, beat Luongo in the third round with a wrist shot.

Brendan Gallagher scored with 1:06 left in the second period for Montreal (24-11-2), which has won four in a row and seven of eight. The Canadiens won the first three games of a season-long five-game road trip that ends at the New Jersey Devils on Friday and at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.

The game drew a sellout crowd of 19,614, the largest attendance of the season at BB&T Center, with a large portion cheering for the Canadiens.

The Panthers (16-9-9) have a point in their past eight home games, 6-0-2 since a 4-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Nov. 24.

Nick Bjugstad scored with 1:49 left in the third period for the Panthers; Roberto Luongo made 33 saves and is 1-7-0 in his past eight starts against the Canadiens.

Florida missed a chance for its first three-game winning streak of the season. It has won two in a row four times.

The best scoring chance of overtime came in the final minute after Tokarski turned over the puck and Jimmy Hayes had an open net from the bottom of the left circle, but his long-range shot went wide.

Bjugstad tied the game when he took a centering feed from rookie defenseman Aaron Ekblad and beat Tokarski with a wrist shot from the slot.

Gallagher scored on Montreal's 20th and final shot of the second period, a wrist shot from outside the right dot that trickled through Luongo's legs. It was Gallagher's fifth goal in 10 games.

Luongo had been spectacular in the second period. He stopped Jiri Sekac on a breakaway in the first minute, blocked a cross-ice pass to thwart a 3-on-1, and had quick reactions to stop a couple of deflections, including one on a slap shot that shattered the stick of Panthers defenseman Willie Mitchell.

Aleksander Barkov came close to giving the Panthers the lead in the second period. He put the puck in the net off a scrum in front of Tokarski, but the goal was waved off because it was ruled Tokarski was shoved into the net.

Barkov hit the crossbar with a shot from the slot about two minutes before Gallagher scored.

Florida coach Gerard Gallant, a Montreal assistant the past two seasons, faced his former team for the first time.

Huberdeau's 14-year-old sister, Josiane, sang "O Canada" before the game. She was among approximately 85 friends and family members cheering on Huberdeau, whose hometown is the Montreal suburb of Saint-Jerome. He had an assist on Bjugstad's goal.

Pure Heroine - Lorde / NEW (Deluxe Edition) - Paul McCartney