The Columbus Blue Jackets' kids are doing just fine, thank you.

Two of the Jackets' top youngsters, goaltender Steve Mason and center Derick Brassard, played big roles in Columbus' 4-3 shootout win over the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night. Mason made 34 saves, including 18 in the first period, then stopped both Montreal attempts in the shootout. The second save came after Brassard, a native of Hull, Quebec, who grew up watching the Canadiens, beat Jaroslav Halak with a spectacular move to give Columbus a 2-0 lead in the breakaway competition.

Mason improved to 2-0-0 in his young NHL career since being called up Nov. 4 as insurance for injured starter Pascal Leclaire. He beat Edmonton 5-4 on Wednesday in his NHL debut.

''It's definitely pretty exciting,'' he said. ''Two wins in two games — I can't complain about that.''

After Kristian Huselius scored in the first round of the shootout, Brassard, who entered the game tops among NHL rookies with 12 points in 12 games, swooped in on Halak, deked a couple of times and got the goaltender to commit before triggering an eruption at Nationwide Arena by putting the puck into the half-empty net.

"I knew which move I wanted to do,'' said Brassard, who admitted he was nervous playing the team he rooted for as a youngster. ''When I got the puck, I was going to make another move, then I said, 'No, no, keep with the same move.'"

Mason followed by stopping Andrei Kostitsyn to give the Blue Jackets their first-ever home win against the Canadiens. Montreal hadn’t lost a game in Ohio since a 2-1 setback against the Cleveland Barons on Nov. 23, 1977. The Canadiens won both previous visits to Columbus.

It looked like they'd win this one, too — they outshot Columbus 19-8 in the first period. But Mason made 18 stops and Columbus escaped with a 1-1 tie, as R.J. Umberger's goal countered one by Alex Tanguay.

"The first period was excellent," Hitchcock said of his young goaltender. "You are going to need your goalie some nights, (and tonight) we looked like we had the stare going — we looked like we were in awe of the stage or just watching. We needed him in the first period and he came up big and then we started to play.

"I think we spent the first period just watching. It didn't feel like 19 shots, but it felt like we weren't checking very hard. We started to really play in the second and third period, they way we had to, to beat them."

After a scoreless second, the Canadiens took a 2-1 lead 2:51 into the third period on Patrice Brisebois' blast through traffic from the right point.
 
But just 2:30 later, Marc Methot got the tying goal when he took a cross-ice pass from Rick Nash and ripped hard shot inside the near post. The crowd was still cheering that goal when Fredrik Modin took a backdoor pass from Fedor Tyutin and jammed it in for a 3-2 lead.

The Jackets were less than a minute from a win when Sergei Kostitsyn converted a pass from his brother Andrei with 40.9 seconds remaining to pull the Canadiens even at 3-3.

But the Jackets survived the disappointment and went home with two points.
 
''We've been able to do that all year, bounce back in the third period to keep the wind in our sails,'' Hitchcock said. ''That's why we're getting points every night now.''

The loss ended Montreal's winning streak at three games and its road winning streak at four. The Canadiens play at Toronto on Saturday.

''We turned the puck over a few times in the neutral zone and they took advantage of it,'' Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau said of his team's effort.

Material from wire services and team broadcast media was used in this report.