Pominville powers Wild past Canadiens

Jason Pominville continues to be in the right place at the right time.

Pominville scored his second goal of the game with 5:28 remaining in regulation to give the Wild a 4-3 victory against the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night. He beat Carey Price from just to the left of the crease for his team-leading ninth goal after the Canadiens had overcome a 3-1 deficit.

"That's why it's so nice to have a guy like that," Wild coach Mike Yeo said. "Some guys need eight chances to score a goal, and some guys need one or two. He's certainly a guy who's capable of taking advantage of those opportunities."

Justin Fontaine and Nino Niederreiter also scored for the Wild.

Brendan Gallagher , P.K. Subban and Brian Gionta had goals for Montreal, which saw its two-game winning streak ended. The Canadiens complete a two-game trip Saturday against the Colorado Avalanche.

Pominville gave Minnesota a 2-1 lead at 8:41 of the second period when he caught up with a long lead pass from Mikael Granlund and beat Price on a breakaway.

"Pucks are finding me, and I'm finding ways to put them in," said Pominville, who was acquired by the Wild from the Buffalo Sabres late in the 2012-13 season. "But I think it's just kind of finally getting rewarded for all the work we put in. I think as a line we went through a little bit of a tough stretch and weren't able to generate much in the goal column, and now we're starting to chip in in that way."

Granlund feels he and Pominville have developed good chemistry.

"He's a smart player. Sometimes I feel like he knows what's going to happen next," Granlund said. "He can make plays and good decisions, so I like to play with him."

Granlund also set up Niederreiter's third of the season at 4:02 of the third period for a 3-1 lead. But Subban beat Josh Harding at 7:12 during a power play to cut the margin to 3-2, and Gionta tied it at 10:13.

"We didn't play a full game," Gionta said. "We had spurts where we did it and you saw that we were successful at that time, but this league is too tough. You've got to do it for 60 minutes to get wins."

Harding returned from a lower-body injury sustained Oct. 24 and made 28 saves. Price stopped 21 shots.

Fontaine opened the scoring 5:45 into the game, but Gallagher got Montreal even 25 seconds later.

Wild center Charlie Coyle returned after missing 11 games with a knee injury, and Yeo shuffled his lines in an effort to generate more 5-on-5 scoring opportunities. The Wild scored more than three goals for the fourth time this season.

Material from team media was used in this report