Canadiens hold off Stars, end 3-game losing streak

DALLAS -- Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist, and the Montreal Canadiens held off the Dallas Stars for a 4-3 win at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.

"There's not too many times where you're 6-on-5 for six minutes. I think we can do a better job [in that situation], but we got the win, that's most important," Suzuki said. "Defensively we were really good tonight against a really good offensive team."

Jordan Harris also had a goal and an assist for the Canadiens (16-16-5), who lost their previous three games. Sam Montembeault made 30 saves.

"We've been building this since Christmas. I think we thought we could have won any of those games since Christmas," Montreal defenseman Kaiden Guhle said. "We've been playing really well. I don't think any of those losses we had were us playing poorly. I think they were all close games and any little mistakes, they executed on. Or lack of execution [from us]. But we've been playing really good hockey as of late and I feel really good about our group going into the new year."

Wyatt Johnston had a goal and an assist, and Mason Marchment had two assists for the Stars (22-10-4), who lost for just the second time in regulation in the past 10 games (7-2-1). Scott Wedgewood made 14 saves.

"In the first period, we scored early and then stood around and watched," Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. "In the second period, we got some good looks. We didn't score, but at least we started to play our game generate some chances. The third period was tough with six minutes of penalties you're killing. They get the one power-play goal and that was probably the difference."

The Stars scored twice late in the third period to pull within 4-3.

Johnston cut it to 4-2 at 16:12 with Wedgewood pulled for an extra attacker on a backhand shot from the slot.

"Obviously we don't want to be in that position, go down three goals and having to pull our goalie that early," Johnston said. "I think we've shown we're able to come back in games, unfortunately weren't able to finish it tonight. We’re always in it. We've shown we can score goals the last couple of seconds of the game, 6-on-5, whatever it is. We have that patience, which is awesome, and just shows our resilience."

Jason Robertson cut it to 4-3 at 18:00 with the extra attacker on a backhand sharp-angled shot from the goal line.

Jamie Benn gave Dallas a 1-0 lead 11 seconds into the first period after he forced a turnover behind the net out into the slot to Johnston, who passed it back to Benn for the backdoor tap-in.

Suzuki tied it 1-1 at 4:14 on a one-timer from the left face-off circle that deflected off the stick of Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpää.

Guhle gave Montreal a 2-1 lead at 9:46 when he sent his own rebound five-hole from the top of the left face-off circle.

Harris extended the lead to 3-1 at 6:54 in the second period when his shot from the right face-off circle went between Wedgewood’s blocker and leg pad.

"It started with [Juraj Slafkovsky], backtracking. I don’t know if he got an assist on it but he should get an assist," Harris said. "It was a great play by him. The coaches encourage all the time jumping up into the play as long as you're smart about it and choosing your spots. Thought it was a good time to do it, so [it] worked out well."

Cole Caufield made it 4-1 at 6:45 in the third period on a backdoor tap-in on the power play.

"They were working hard. They were pretty close all the time when we had the puck and playing hard on us," Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen said. "We had to do a lot of battling and a lot of working to get to the good places. They were defending hard and playing really well."

NOTES: It was Suzuki's 58th multipoint game. Only six players in Canadiens history have had more multipoint games at age 24 or younger: Guy Lafleur (119), Stephane Richer (91), Henri Richard (84), Steve Shutt (79), Bernie Geoffrion (68) and Mario Tremblay (61). ... Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson had his road point streak end at eight games. ... Benn’s goal (11 seconds) was the sixth-fastest to start a game in Stars/Minnesota North Stars history.