Evans scores in OT, Canadiens defeat Golden Knights

MONTREAL -- Jake Evans scored at 3:58 of overtime to give the Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Bell Centre on Tuesday.

Evans drove in from the right and tucked a backhand around Akira Schmid for the winner after Montreal allowed the tying goal with 3:08 remaining in the third period.

“I was thinking (Kaiden Guhle) might be open, that was the initial thought, but it felt like their ‘D’ men took that away,” Evans said. “I don’t think I ever had backhand planned until I went to my backhand.”

Said Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy: “It looks like we’ve got numbers coming back and then he’s in alone. So maybe he had a little deceptive speed, or our ‘D’ read it as a 2-on-2 and our four couldn’t quite track him and angle him to push him out far enough, but he made a good move.”

Cole Caufield scored for a sixth straight game for Montreal and reached 30 goals for a second straight season. He has 11 points (nine goals, two assists) during his longest NHL goal streak.

“I just like where my game is at right now,” Caufield said. “I think I’m getting a lot of chances, and obviously (Schmid) made some big saves on me a couple of times. I could have had more but I’m happy to get 30 today.”

Phillip Danault scored, and Jakub Dobes made 32 saves for Montreal (29-17-7), which had lost consecutive games for the first time since Dec. 7-9.

“We’re playing some really good teams,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “You’ve got to be calculated, what you do with the puck and your decision-making in the third, and I thought we were.”

Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice, and Schmid made 23 saves for Vegas (25-14-13), which lost 7-1 at the Ottawa Senators on Sunday and is 1-3-1 in its past five games.

“We were down going into the third [period] and we've done a good job this year getting back in the game," Cassidy said. "We're never out of it, so that's a positive. I thought it was a good game. We played with pace. Offensively, I thought we generated some good looks. I thought both goaltenders had good nights, so there was a lot to like.

"The second period, the game got away from us a bit and that's a problem for us lately. We have just not been able to reclaim our game to sort of get back in it. And one turns into two, lately it's been two turning into three, so at least there was that. We kept it within a goal so it's there for us, and we end up getting the tying goal. So those are the positives."

Dorofeyev scored his second of the game at 16:52 of the third period to tie it 2-2 with a deflection past Dobes’ glove on Ben Hutton’s shot from the left point.

“Obviously you don’t want to give up one late, but I like the way we responded, and we were able to get that extra point in overtime, which is huge,” Canadiens defenseman Noah Dobson.

Dorofeyev gave Vegas a 1-0 lead with an unassisted goal at 8:38 of the first period. He carried the puck along the left side on a 2-on-1 with Braeden Bowman and scored glove side on Dobes with a wrist shot from the left face-off dot.

Caufield appeared to tie it with a one-timer from the left circle on a power play, but Vegas challenged for offside, and video review determined Caufield entered the zone before the puck at 18:47.

Danault did tie it 1-1 at 4:24 of the second period when he got in the lane of Zachary Bolduc’s turnaround wrist shot from the left point and tipped the puck down and past Schmid glove side.

Caufield put Montreal ahead 2-1 at 8:55. He was positioned to the right of the net to get to a loose puck and tuck a backhand inside the post.

Dobes stuck out his left pad to stop Mark Stone’s shot from the right edge of the crease on a backdoor pass from Jack Eichel on a power play 31 seconds into the third.

“We got a couple of tough breaks in the second, the puck just wouldn’t go in,” Dorofeyev said. “We weren’t out of the play, and we just kept pushing and pushing and believed that it will come.”

NOTES: The Canadiens are 17-6-0 against Western Conference opponents, including a 4-1 road win against the Golden Knights on Nov. 28. … Caufield tied Max Domi the longest goal streak by a Montreal player in the past 30 years.