Canadiens open with five goals, ease past Bruins to push point streak to 12

The Montreal Canadiens extended their point streak to 12 games, scoring the opening five goals in a 5-2 win against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden in Boston on Thursday.

Josh Anderson and Jake Evans each had a goal and an assist, and Cole Caufield also scored for the Canadiens (12-3-4), who are 9-0-3 during their point streak, and have lost once in regulation in their past 15 games (11-1-3). Jacob Fowler made 30 saves.

“You’re winning 5-0, but the game could easily be 3-2 the other way,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “We had some big saves and we were opportunistic with our chances. But between the saves and our opportunities, it wasn’t our best game.”

Fowler, the NHL Rookie of the Month in October, is 9-0-2 in 11 starts since Oct. 8, when he lost 5-3 to the Nashville Predators in his season debut.

“He’s phenomenal,” forward Kirby Dach said. “I think we’re running out of words to describe him. But he’s great. He’s our rock. He makes the game pretty easy for us and calms us down when things aren’t going our way. He makes a lot of saves at key moments throughout the game and we’re able to turn that into offense.”

Casey Mittelstadt scored twice, and Elias Lindholm assisted on both goals for the Bruins (13-5-1), who had won four straight. Jeremy Swayman allowed four goals on 17 shots before he was replaced at 8:14 of the second period by Michael DiPietro, who made 13 saves in relief.

Dach put Montreal up 1-0 at 2:34 of the first with a wraparound goal. He curled around the right side of the offensive zone with the puck before sweeping behind the net and using his reach to stuff it inside the left post.

Anderson extended it to 2-0 at 8:36. Swayman made the save on Evans’ deflection of Mike Matheson’s shot from the right point, but Anderson came off the left post to bat the rebound out of the air and past Swayman stick side.

“Against a team like Montreal, it’s unacceptable to start like that,” Boston captain David Pastrnak said. “It’s on us players to take the responsibility. I thought we got the guys ready and we were ready, and overall, we weren’t. 

“Even though it was much better the second half of the first period and the beginning of the (second) we got going, we got our legs going, but forgot about defense and gave up too many breakaways. And against a skilled team like Montreal, they’re going to punish you.”

The Canadiens have yet to trail at the end of the first period this season.

“We were just very flat,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said. “There was nothing going on. I thought David’s line was the only line early on. They pushed, they worked, but overall, it was just very, very flat, and all of a sudden we were down 2-0 because of it. So that was the disappointing thing for me today. Just not good enough. I think we can all be better.”

Evans made it 3-0 on the breakaway at 4:24 of the second period. Anderson’s stretch pass sent Evans in alone to score on a backhand between Swayman’s pads.

Caufield pushed it to 4-0 at 8:14. He drove in alone and fired a wrist shot past Swayman’s glove for Montreal’s second straight breakaway goal.

Phillip Danault extended it to 5-0 at 14:15 with a one-timer between DiPietro’s pads from the top of the right face-off circle.

Mittelstadt scored 38 seconds later to make it 5-1. He drove in on Fowler and tucked a backhand around his left pad.

Mittelstadt’s second straight goal just 52 seconds into the third period cut it to 5-2.

NOTES: Canadiens forward Chris Kreider left at 6:27 of the third and did not return after an open-ice collision with Boston forward Michael Eyssimont left him briefly lying prone on the ice before a stoppage in play. Kreider got up and hopped off to the dressing room without putting weight on his left leg. There was no update following the game. … Fowler won his fifth straight road start to tie Charlie Hodge (Nov. 27 to Dec. 18, 1960) for the longest season-opening road winning streak in franchise history. He also became the fifth rookie in NHL history with a run of that length. Only Brent Johnson (eight-game road winning streak from Oct. 6, 2000, to Jan. 13, 2001), and Ilya Samsonov (seven-game streak from Oct. 4 to Dec. 20, 2019) have had longer such streaks. … Matheson had an assist and was plus-3 in 21:11 of ice time in his return after missing the previous six games with a lower-body injury.