Bruins lose to Habs

Montreal’s dominance over Boston continues

Canadiens 4, Bruins 2

NHL. The Montreal Canadiens’ mastery of the Bruins has reached historic levels.

Alexei Kovalev scored two highlight-reel goals and added an assist and rookie Carey Price stopped 34 shots as the Canadiens gained the top spot in the Eastern Conference with a 4-2 win over the Bruins.

With the win, the Canadiens (41-24-10) jumped into first place in the Eastern Conference with 92 points and ran their winning streak against Boston to 10 games. The last time they’d won that many in a row over the Bruins was during World War II.

Boston (37-28-9), meanwhile, fell to 2-5-3 in its last 10 games and remained just one point ahead of eighth-place Philadelphia and two up on ninth-place Buffalo in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Tim Thomas made 26 saves for the Bruins.

Boston was actually the aggressor early, outshooting the visitors in the first, 15-6.  The Bruins dominated early in the second and appeared to have momentum following a big hit by Jeremy Reich, who followed that up by outpunching Tom Kostopoulos to bring the home crowd to its feet.

Kovalev immediately replied with a pretty goal to open the scoring. After skating into the Boston zone, he burned Chara with a spin move and pushed a backhand on net that trickled through Thomas’ legs 8:19 into the period.

Kovalev’s encore came five minutes later when he skated end-to-end before splitting through Chara and fellow defenseman Dennis Wideman to notch his 33rd goal of the season.

The Bruins cut the lead in half within 27 seconds when, after defenseman Shane Hnidy made a dive to keep the puck in the zone, blue-liner Mark Stuart fired a slap shot past Price for his fourth goal this season.

Saku Koivu found Michael Ryder for a one-timer early in the third to give Montreal a 3-1 advantage and Andrei Kostitsyn made it 4-1 with a tally with less than nine minutes remaining. Wideman collected a late goal for Boston to finish the scoring.