GAME RECAP: Canadiens 4, Oilers 1

MONTREAL, QC – Goaltender Calvin Pickard made 23 saves, including five on breakaways, but the Edmonton Oilers were stifled at the other end by netminder Jakub Dobeš, who stopped 27 shots for the Montreal Canadiens in their 4-1 victory on Sunday night at the Bell Centre.

"Credit to Montreal, they played well and defended well," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "But we were feeling confident. We'd scored a lot of goals, were starting to win, and now some bad habits are creeping into our game when things are going well. It really cost us tonight, giving up five breakaways and two-on-ones. It's just not sustainable."

With each side playing the second of a back-to-back, the Canadiens gained early momentum from a two-minute five-on-three penalty kill in a scoreless first period before Ivan Demidov notched the opening goal on the power play and Joe Veleno doubled the lead in the middle frame to make it 2-0 for the hosts.

The Oilers were prone to giveaways over the full 60 minutes and weren't able to beat Dobeš until Zach Hyman's tally on the man advantage in the last 10 minutes of the third period, making it 3-1 Canadiens before Alexandre Texier scored 1:23 later to restore the lead after Nick Suzuki notched Montreal's third.

Leon Draisaitl went pointless to extend the search for his 1,000th NHL point, while Edmonton dropped to 0-3-3 this season in the second of back-to-back games as they now look ahead to Tuesday's meeting with the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena to continue their five-game road trip.

"The last month or so, I've really liked our game, so I'm going to take the positives out of those ones," Mattias Ekholm said. "This one we didn't like, but there's going to be one game here or there that you don't like. Hopefully, we'll have a response on Tuesday."

FIRST PERIOD

The Oilers weren't short of their opportunities in the opening frame to take the lead – or give their German superstar his 1,000th career point – after they failed to capitalize on a full two-minute five-on-three or another man advantage in a scoreless first period at the Bell Centre.

Calvin Pickard made the contest's first big play by kicking out the right pad to deny Josh Anderson on a breakaway inside the first three minutes of regulation after the Canadiens came out with more jump to get the crowd on their side in the early going.

If they didn't earn their home crowd's favour early, they certainly would've after the eight-minute mark from killing off Edmonton's extended five-on-three for a full two minutes, when Juraj Slavkovsky was served a hooking penalty while the referee's hand was up for a cross-checking call coming to Oliver Kapanen.

Canadiens netminder Jakub Dobeš came up with a huge save on Zach Hyman's back-door chance inside the blue paint on the five-on-three after Connor McDavid fed it across to him from the opposite side of the crease, then was given a lifeline with Evan Bouchard's one-timer that was destined for the back of the net, but it was blocked in front by his own teammate Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

If the puck had found its way in, Draisaitl would've had his 1,000th point right there with an assist, but the German's search for the century and Edmonton's attempts at opening the scoring would continue despite their golden opportunity.

"Absolutely. We would've been in a better position scoring on that," Knoblauch said. "I think there were a lot of good things on that power play. I thought we had some good chances. Their goalie made some unbelievable saves. They made some nice defensive plays, and we even had an empty net that one of our players blocked. But that definitely would have made a difference in the game.

"But then the rest of it, I thought we were forcing it."

Pickard was playing his part to match Dobeš in the Canadiens' crease by coming up with a great lateral save on Montreal's first power play past the midway mark of the frame, denying Slavkovsky after the puck caught a piece of the post with Alec Regula in the box for holding.

The Canadiens did beat him later on the man advantage, but Brendan Gallagher kicked it past him while pushing his pad into the net before the officials waved it off to keep it 0-0 in Montreal before the power play expired.

Matt Savoie was inches away from giving Draisaitl his 1,000th point when he put the German's pass through the five-hole of Dobeš in front, but it slid past the outside of the post, and the Oilers would fall to 0-for-3 on the power play in the last four minutes of the frame before the first intermission came.

SECOND PERIOD

If it weren't for Pickard playing lights out for the Oilers, this would've been a much more flattering scoreline for the Canadiens after 40 minutes.

"Without picks tonight, it could have been a lot worse," Ekholm affirmed post-game. "So that's obviously something we have to tighten up. We didn't seem to be able to get any sustained offence five on five, and we couldn't find any momentum, really. They were good with the lead. "

There wasn't much that Pickard could've done on both of Montreal's two goals in the middle frame, starting with a snipe by Ivan Demidov from the right circle on the power play that the Russian buried short side and top shelf at 17:32 of the period for the 1-0 lead and his seventh goal of the campaign.

The Oilers were guilty of giving the puck away a handful of times over the remainder of the period, starting with Alec Regula coughing it up at the Canadiens' blueline with a blind pass that Nick Suzuki picked off before Pickard stood up the Montreal captain on another breakaway.

"The breakaways we gave up were just puck management, just trying things in the offensive zone where we should've just put pucks into a safe spot, and Picks bailed us out and gave us an opportunity to stay in the game," Knoblauch said. "But it was just too much."

Pickard coming up clutch on breakaways was becoming a major theme on Sunday, but the giveaways from his teammates in front of him were the contributing factor to him needing to make 20 saves through two periods and the Habs taking a 2-0 lead through Joe Veleno at 8:02 of the period.

After McDavid got the puck behind his own net from Bouchard, the captain uncharacteristically threw the puck blindly into the middle, where Veleno picked it up and quickly sniped it past Pickard for an unassisted marker that doubled Montreal's advantage.

Pickard remained up to the task, however, finishing the frame with another breakaway stop on Suzuki to close out action in the second period.

THIRD PERIOD

When the Oilers did have an answer for the Canadiens during the third period, it was given right back before time ran out in their defeat at the Bell Centre.

After Suzuki was denied twice by Pickard on breakaways earlier in the game, the Canadiens' captain got himself on the scoresheet at 16:22 of the final frame with a back-door redirection on the power play that was put onto his tape with a shot-pass delivered by Slavkovsky to make it 3-0 for the hosts.

Dobeš stopped Mattias Janmark point-blank from the slot with 11 minutes remaining in regulation, looking like a shutout could be on the cards for the Czech Olympic hopeful netminder, but a Zach Hyman power-play goal would end his chances at the clean sheet with 7:31 left in the third period.

Hyman shovelled home a rebound in front of the net that came from a slapshot delivered off the tape of Evan Bouchard, with McDavid picking up the secondary helper to extend his point streak to five games with seven goals and nine assists.

Draisaitl didn't pick up a point on the play, and after the Oilers pulled their goalie with over four minutes left in regulation later on, the German's search for his 1,000th NHL point was pushed to Tuesday's meeting with Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The task of coming back became even more challenging after the Canadiens got their goal right back on a two-on-one through Alexandre Texier, who buried his shot under the right arm of Pickard to restore the 4-1 lead with 6:08 left in regulation to cap off the scoring in Sunday's defeat for the Oilers.