Montreal – Sheldon Souray scored the winning goal, then dished out the credit to teammate Tomas Plekanec.
Souray scored 2:01 into overtime Sunday and the Montreal Canadiens snapped the Pittsburgh Penguins’ six-game winning streak with a 4-3 victory.
Plekanec scored twice in regulation before setting up Souray in overtime during a 2-on-1 advantage. Souray, ejected from Montreal’s 5-4 shootout loss in Pittsburgh on Wednesday for fighting with Colby Armstrong, one-timed Plekanec’s pass and drove the puck past Marc-Andre Fleury into the right side of the net.
“He played a really excellent game, and he’s done that over the last few games,” Souray said of Plekanec. “He’s stepped up offensively, and we need that. You look at his two goals, they were just the result of hard work and being in front of the net. He was willing to pay the price, and he got rewarded for it.”
Sidney Crosby, who had an eight-game point streak broken Saturday in Pittsburgh’s 2-0 win over Washington, assisted on power-play goals by Jordan Staal and Ryan Whitney. The 19-year-old forward leads the NHL with 59 assists and 84 points.
He also was stripped of the puck in the Canadiens’ zone by Plekanec on the play that led to the winning goal.
“I was just making a move, and when you make a move that high in the zone you know it could be trouble if you lose it there,” Crosby said. “That’s a bad area to lose the puck, so obviously I have to learn from that one.”
The Penguins’ streak was their longest since they won six in a row from Jan. 17-26, 2002. Pittsburgh has recorded points in 10 consecutive games (8-0-2).
Michel Ouellet tied it at 3 on the Penguins’ third power-play goal, scored with 2:34 remaining in regulation. Ouellet deflected Ryan Malone’s centering pass over David Aebischer’s left pad for his 11th goal.
