Canadiens defeat Maple Leafs to end 5-game skid

MONTREAL -- Noah Dobson and Josh Anderson each scored twice, and the Montreal Canadiens ended a five-game skid with a 5-2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Bell Centre on Saturday.

Lane Hutson scored, Ivan Demidov and Mike Matheson each had two assists, and Jakub Dobes made 24 saves for Montreal (11-7-3), which was 0-4-1 in its previous five, and had one win in its previous eight games (1-4-3).

“We played with a lot of pace, made it hard tonight for them, just playing a deep game, forechecking,” Dobson said. “And then when we do that, we get all our looks we want in the ‘O’ zone and find our chances, and we were able to capitalize. But a huge response and a big two points.”

William Nylander had a goal and an assist and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored for Toronto (9-10-3), which has one win in eight games (1-5-2).

“We’ve been playing some good hockey lately, getting some points out of games, but we’re still shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit,” Ekman-Larsson said. “A couple of bad plays so we need to work on that.”

Joseph Woll allowed four goals on 25 shots before he was replaced after Anderson’s first goal made it 4-0 at 13:11 of the second period. Dennis Hildeby made three saves in relief.

“As a group that’s the ultimate one on us,” Maple Leafs forward John Tavares said. “When we leave our goalie out to dry and he’s giving you everything he’s got, keeping you in the game, and we’re just not executing well enough to turn the game around and obviously get us back in it, give him the break and obviously provide some run support.”

Hutson scored at 12:11 of the first period to put Montreal ahead 1-0. He one-timed a cross-ice pass from Nick Suzuki to shoot over Woll from low in the right face-off circle.

Dobson scored at 13:33 for a 2-0 lead with a one-timed slap shot from above the right face-off circle that deflected off Nylander’s stick and flew over Woll’s glove.

Dobson made it 3-0 at 4:09 of the second period. The Montreal defenseman finished off a passing play that began with Juraj Slafkovsky hesitating after carrying the puck into the offensive zone before feeding the puck to Demidov to the right of the net. Demidov feathered a pass to Dobson, who drove hard to the right circle and one-timed a slap shot past Woll for his first two-goal game in the NHL.

“Just a great passing play,” Dobson said. “‘Slaf’ made a great play down to ‘Demi’ and ‘Demi’ kind of sold shot so well and put it on a tee for me.”

Anderson pushed it to 4-0 at 13:11 with a tight-angle shot from the right of the goal that found an opening between Woll’s arm and the right post.

Ekman-Larsson cut it to 4-1 at 17:19, extending his point streak to six games (two goals, four assists) with a wrist shot from above the left face-off circle past Dobes glove side.

Nylander drew the Maple Leafs within 4-2 with a power-play goal at 14:55 on a shot from the right point.

Anderson shot into an empty net from his half of the center-ice circle with 2:10 remaining for the 5-2 final.

“The second period was real tough,” Tavares said. “We just didn’t respond well after we got down two. We had been playing well to that point. Obviously, they capitalize on a couple of chances, and we just weren’t able to get things going in the second period until really late and that put us in a big hole. So we fought hard until the end and kept it a game but it was just too big of a hole to dig out of.”

Florian Xhekaj made his NHL debut for Montreal and got his first point with the setup pass to Anderson.

“That was awesome, it was an unbelievable first game,” Xhekaj said. “I don’t think I could ask for a better first one, so it was super cool.”

The 21-year-old forward and younger brother of Canadiens defenseman Arber Xhekaj was recalled from Laval of the American Hockey League on Friday.

“I’m definitely proud of him,” Arber Xhekaj said. “When you play hard guys are going to give you the puck. He and Anderson are running around like that and guys are just coughing up the puck to them and nobody wants to get hit by those guys, so he played his game perfectly.”

NOTES: Florian Xhekaj is the 10th player to record a point in his NHL debut this season. … Dobes got his seventh win in 10 starts this season. Carey Price is the only other Montreal goalie to win as many through his first 10 games of a season in the past 10 years. Price won his first 10 starts in 2016-17 after winning eight of his first 10 in 2015-16. ... Toronto defenseman Jake McCabe left the game with an upper-body injury.