Playing their hearts out

MONTREAL - The Canadiens weren't about to allow the Dallas Stars to push them around in their own house on Tuesday night.

Instead of letting the inevitable fatigue of a long road trip get the best of them, Claude Julien's troops played a gutsy and passionate brand of hockey en route to earning a 4-2 win at the Bell Centre - and they snapped a five-game winless streak in the process.
Artturi Lehkonen led the way up front with his third two-goal effort of the season, while Brendan Gallagher and Nikita Scherbak found the back of the net, too, as the Canadiens lit the lamp three times with the man advantage.

For his part, Antti Niemi made 36 saves to help spoil Alexander Radulov's return to Montreal.
"It's important to give the guys credit when they earn it. The group really impressed me," praised Julien, during his postgame press conference. "The first game back after a long trip is always tough. We went up against a really good team, a team battling to stay in the playoff hunt. The way we reacted, the intensity, we gave everything we had from start to finish. We showed a lot of character."
They certainly did, especially in the physicality department.
In addition to dropping the gloves, Nicolas Deslauriers accounted for a career-high 11 of the Canadiens' 48 hits against Ken Hitchcock's contingent. Meanwhile, youngster Brett Lernout chipped in with a career-high nine of his own.
"This is the type of game that I love," said Deslauriers, who leads the Habs with 204 hits in just 46 games on the year. "I love to hit."
The hit that drew the most attention on Tuesday night, though, wasn't thrown by Deslauriers. Instead, it came courtesy of Andrew Shaw, who came out on the wrong end of a hit attempt on Greg Pateryn during the third period. Shaw was essentially knocked out cold on the play, but Pateryn still proceeded to punch him in the head as he laid on the ice along the boards.
It goes without saying that Shaw's teammates weren't at all pleased with Pateryn's conduct, including Karl Alzner.
"It's unacceptable. You get fired up in the moment, you do things that you don't necessarily think through. It's not something you ever want to see. You don't like those kinds of things," said Alzner. "It kind of makes you feel sick when you see that. It's like when you watch UFC and the guy keeps going after the knockout. It's kind of a bad feeling."

Just 26 seconds after the former Canadiens defenseman was assessed a roughing penalty for punching Shaw, though, Scherbak delivered the perfect response possible by notching another highlight-reel tally that capped the scoring and ultimately put the game out of reach for good.
It really was the best form of revenge, and Julien couldn't have been prouder of the final result.
"I told the guys: "If after this one you're not hurting, after playing three games in four nights, it's because we haven't given enough,'" concluded Julien. "I'm sure that a lot of them are sore right now, but you always feel better when you win a game."