John Moore’s late power-play goal lifts Bruins over Canadiens 3-2

MONTREAL — A bad penalty by Jonathan Drouin in the game’s dying minutes crushed Montreal’s comeback hopes.

With Drouin in the box for high sticking, the Boston Bruins scored a power-play goal late in the third period to defeat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Saturday night in a hard-hitting and penalty-filled affair. Montreal has lost four games in a row for the first time this season.

“You can’t take a penalty at that time of the game,” said coach Claude Julien. “If he (Drouin) said that it’s on him, well he’s right. You have to be disciplined. We can’t do those things if we want to win hockey games.”

With less than six minutes remaining in a 2-2 contest, Drouin cross-checked David Backes in the face, cutting the Bruins winger below the bottom lip. The incident happened away from the run of play just minutes after the Canadiens came back from two goals down to equalize.

“He was coming at me,” said Drouin of Backes. “I didn’t mean to hit him in the face.”

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John Moore scored his first goal of the season on the ensuing four-minute power play, at 17:03 of the third, and the Bruins held on for their third win in four games.

“A four-minute power play with five minutes left in a tie game is certainly a good thing to have,” said Backes, who also scored and added an assist on Saturday. “We made good on it. Kudos to the guys in here for staying with it.

“I don’t mind bleeding. Bleeding’s better than concussions to me. If that’s what it takes to win, I’ll take blood.”

Boston (13-6-4) finished 1 for 6 with the man advantage while Montreal was 1 for 5. Both teams combined for 30 penalty minutes.

The Canadiens (11-8-5) dished out 51 hits to Boston’s 27, but the aggressive play ended up costing the home team two points.

“Hard penalty to take, when a cross-check rides up like that,” said Charles Hudon, who finished the game with 13 hits. “Yes it’s an individual penalty, but it’s the entire team’s fault we gave up two early goals.”

The Bruins took a 1-0 lead at 13:01 of the first period when Backes swiped the puck from Jesperi Kotkaniemi at the Montreal blue line before beating Carey Price glove side for his first goal of the season.

With the teams playing 4-on-4 hockey, Jake Debrusk doubled Boston’s lead at 14:42 when he snuck behind defenceman Brett Kulak and tapped in a beautiful pass from Torey Krug.

Price stopped 32-of-35 shots in defeat as he dropped to 3-5-2 since shutting out the Bruins 3-0 on Oct. 27.

Drouin got one back for the home team at 6:46 for his ninth of the season. The Canadiens winger beat Krug with speed in the Boston zone before squeezing a shot between Tuukka Rask’s pads.

Tomas Tatar got the equalizer for Montreal on the power play at 10:09 of the third. With David Pastrnak in the penalty box for slashing, Tatar took a pass from Andrew Shaw from behind the net and roofed a one-timer past Rask.

“It was a tight game but we needed to find two points tonight,” said Shaw, who earned his 100th career assist. “Saturday night at home against the Boston Bruins, it would have been nice to come out on top.”

It was the second game of a back-to-back series for both teams. Boston beat Pittsburgh 2-1 in overtime on Friday while Montreal lost 3-2 in overtime in Buffalo.

Notes: Rask made 31 saves. … David Krejci had two assists. … The Bruins were without the injured Zdeno Chara (knee) and Patrice Bergeron (rib). … It was the second of four meetings between the Canadiens and Bruins this season.

Kelsey Patterson, The Canadian Press