Scrivens, Canadiens top Hurricanes in shootout

MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens finally strung two wins together, thanks to consecutive strong starts from goalie Ben Scrivens.
Scrivens made five saves in the shootout, and Sven Andrighetto scored the only goal in the tiebreaker, in the fifth round, to give Montreal a 2-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at Bell Centre on Sunday.

Scrivens stopped Carolina captain Eric Staal on the Hurricanes' final attempt after Andrighetto beat Cam Ward with a wrist shot inside the right post on Montreal's fifth shot.
Scrivens made 34 saves, including crucial stops on Staal and Jeff Skinner late in the third period. He had 23 saves in Montreal's 5-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
"I think the momentum this weekend started early in the game against Edmonton," said Montreal captain Max Pacioretty, who scored in the second period. "[Scrivens] made two huge saves against, I think it was both times on [Jordan] Eberle 1-on-0 in front of the net, and I think that kind of set the tempo for him and for us this weekend. So those four points are big, but a lot of that is because of the way he played."

The Canadiens won consecutive games for the first time since a four-game winning streak from Nov. 20-27.
"[Saturday], we were pretty much lights-out," Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban said. "I thought we played pretty consistent throughout 60 minutes from top to bottom. I think today, the first period, we were turning pucks over and we weren't playing the game we wanted to play."
Ward made 33 saves in his second straight start for the Hurricanes since returning from a concussion that sidelined him for six games. He made a glove save on Tomas Plekanec in overtime shortly after Subban shot wide of the right post.
"[Ward] was excellent," Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said. "Both goaltenders were very good, made some big saves, and both goaltenders were very good in the shootout also."
Pacioretty tied it 1-1 with his 20th goal at 8:11 of the second period, snapping a wrist shot past Ward into the top left corner. He has scored 20 or more goals four times in eight NHL seasons.

Skinner scored his 19th goal to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 2:27 of the first period. He was parked in front of Scrivens and deflected Jordan Staal's shot past the goalie's left pad and just inside the right post.
"We had a lot of good looks," Eric Staal said. "We like the way we playing for the most part through the first, second, the third was pretty even both ways, but we had a lot of great chances, the power play, obviously, some really good looks that you want to see them fall, but right now they're not, especially for me. It's been tough trying to scrape some confidence. I'm going to need one off my behind or something, and then go from there, but we'll take the point and we'll be ready next game."
Alex Galchenyuk had a scoring opportunity on a power play in the third period, after Eric Staal was penalized for interference at 14:09, but Hurricanes defenseman John-Michael Liles blocked the left wing's shot from the slot.
Andrei Markov set up Pacioretty's goal to move ahead of Hall of Fame defenseman Guy Lapointe into 10th place on the Canadiens' all-time assist list with 407.
Subban extended his point streak to six games (two goals, seven assists) with the secondary assist on Pacioretty's goal.
Markov and Eric Staal each played in his 900th NHL game.