Kings shut out Canadiens, set NHL record with 11-0-0 road start

MONTREAL -- The Los Angeles Kings set an NHL record with their 11th straight road win to start the season, 4-0 against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Thursday.

Cam Talbot made 24 saves for his 30th NHL shutout, Quinton Byfield scored twice and had an assist and Anze Kopitar had three assists for Los Angeles (16-4-3), which broke the previous record of 10 straight road wins set by the Buffalo Sabres in 2006-07.

“Well, that sure sounds good,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “Normally, we’re downplaying achievements, talking about getting to the next game, but I think we have to acknowledge the group has played really well. And how they did it on the road, twice we’ve had to come back from three-goal deficits, as early as last game (a 4-3 overtime win at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday)."

Talbot has won each of his nine starts on the road to tie the NHL record for the longest season-opening road win streak by a goaltender, a mark set by Glenn Hall of the Chicago Blackhawks in 1965-66.

“It’s just been so much to be on the road with these guys, and it’s a special group, so I’m happy to be part of that record for sure,” Talbot said.

Sam Montembeault made 38 saves for Montreal (11-12-3), which has lost three of four and was shut out by the Kings for the second time in 12 days.

“They just play so well 5-on-5,” Montembeault said. “I think our first half of the game we played really well and we had some chances. But we’ve really got to bear down on those, we had two posts and we missed a couple. And when you play a team like that that doesn’t give you much, we didn’t get much after that in the second half.”

“I thought honestly we played a lot better than we did in L.A. (a 4-0 loss on Nov. 25),” Montreal captain Nick Suzuki said. “We hit, I don’t know how many posts, had a lot of good scoring chances. You know, once you go down to a team that plays like that, it’s hard to get through their trap, and they made it difficult on us to come back.”

Drew Doughty, who also had an assist, gave Los Angeles a 1-0 lead at 8:13 of the first period when he took a return pass from Byfield and scored under the pad of Montembeault from the side of the crease.

Byfield made it 2-0 at 17:46 when he drove past Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle and cut across the crease before tucking the puck around Montembeault off the rush. 

Byfield tapped in a rebound from the right side on a power play for his second straight goal at 18:15 of the second to make it 3-0. 

“Obviously, he’s feeling really good right now and he’s been playing great all year,” Kopitar said. “And I’m obviously very happy to see him getting rewarded and just getting his confidence up and the way he’s playing. He’s playing big minutes and sometimes we get into some penalty troubles, he’s sitting on the bench, yet he’s still engaged and it’s great to see. That’s definitely a sign of maturing and things to come.”

Trevor Moore put the Kings up 4-0 at 7:58 of the third period when he converted on a breakaway off a pass by Kevin Fiala.

“They came out flying like we knew they would,” Talbot said. “They had a bunch of chances in the first period there. I thought that we weathered the storm and then kind of took over in the second period and the third.”

NOTES: Los Angeles is the fifth team in NHL history, and third since the start of last season, to have a road winning streak of 11 games or more. … Kopitar and Moore each has a point in all 11 games during the road winning streak, ranking third in franchise history, trailing Marcel Dionne (12 games), and Bernie Nicholls and Wayne Gretzky (16 games). The only other teammates to have longer season-opening point streaks on the road were Gretzky and Jari Kurri of the Edmonton Oilers, who each had 12-game road point streaks to begin the 1984-85 season. … Doughty has scored in three consecutive games; the only Kings defenseman with a longer goal streak is Jaroslav Modry (four in 2002-03).