Juraj Slafkovsky had two goals and an assist, Phillip Danault and Cole Caufield each had a goal and an assist, and Jakub Dobes made 25 saves for the Canadiens, the No. 3 seed from the Atlantic Division. Nick Suzuki had three assists.
Seth Jarvis and Eric Robinson each scored and Frederik Andersen made 16 saves for the Hurricanes, the No. 1 seed from the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference.
The loss was the first of the postseason for the Hurricanes, who swept their best-of-7 series against both the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference First and Second Rounds.
Game 2 is back at Lenovo Center on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).
Carolina took a 1-0 lead 33 seconds into the first period after Sebastian Aho's backhand pass from along the boards deflected off the skate of teammate Andrei Svechnikov to Jarvis, who beat Dobes' low blocker.
Just 27 seconds later, Caufield tied it 1-1 at 1:00 when he scored on a wrist shot at the right hash marks off Slafkovsky's backhand feed behind the goal line.
Danault picked up Alexandre Carrier’s indirect pass off the left boards inside Montreal’s offensive blue line and scored on a short breakaway to put Montreal ahead 2-1 at 4:04.
Alexandre Texier made it 3-1 at 8:11, getting the pass from Danault in front for the one-timer past Andersen glove side.
Ivan Demidov scored off the rush to push the lead to 4-1 at 11:32. He took a backhand feed from Alex Newhook in the neutral zone and scored on a breakaway, tucking the puck inside the left post on his forehand.
Eric Robinson's first goal of the playoffs came when he took a stretch pass from William Carrier to break out down the middle of the ice and beat Dobes over the blocker with a snap shot to make it 4-2 at 2:46 of the second period.
Slafkovsky extended the Montreal lead to 5-2 at 7:05 of the third period. He drove the slot and stickhandled around Svechnikov in front before going backhand to forehand past Andersen's blocker.
Slafkovsky scored again, putting the puck into the empty net at 17:32 for the 6-2 final.
