MONTREAL - Tomas Plekanec scored in the first period and Carey Price made 29 saves for his second shutout in a row and ninth shutout of the season as the Montreal Canadiens eked out a 2-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night.
Price, coming off a 4-0 win over Carolina on Thursday night, posted his league-leading 40th victory to become the third goalie in Canadiens history to reach that total after Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden. They share the team record of 42 wins.
Brendan Gallagher had an empty-net goal with 14 seconds left as Montreal (46-20-7) won its third game in a row.
Antti Niemi made 27 saves for San Jose (35-29-8), whose battle for a Western Conference playoff spot was set back.
The Canadiens had been shut out in their previous three meetings with the Sharks, including a 4-0 loss in San Jose on March 2. Plekanec ended a sequence of 215 minutes without a goal at 18:46 of the opening period.
Criss-cross passing on a rush into the San Jose zone saw Alex Galchenyuk feed Plekanec for a goal from a tight angle.
Montreal thought they had a goal early in the third when Alexei Emelin shot into an open side, but the officials ruled that David Desharnais had made a hand pass. Replays showed Desharnais reached for the puck with his hand, but missed.
For a second game in a row, defenceman Tom Gilbert was hit in the face by a puck, this time on a Marc-Edouard Vlasic shot at the end of the second period. This time, he did not return to the game.
Notes — Defenceman Jeff Petry returned after missing a game with an illness. . . Two of Montreal's minor league defence prospects are out with injuries. Davis Drewiske had wrist surgery is gone for the remainder of the season. Jarred Tinordi has an upper-body injury and will be re-evaluated in three weeks.
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