MONTREAL (AP) Montreal’s David Desharnais scored on a power play with 1:08 left in regulation to lift the Canadiens to a 4-2 victory over Boston on Saturday and a double-digit points lead in the NHL Atlantic Division after just 16 games.
The Canadiens are dominating the Atlantic and are five points ahead of their nearest Western Conference rival, the New York Rangers, who won a fifth straight with victory at Arizona.
St. Louis closed within a point of the Central Division lead by winning convincingly at Nashville, and stayed three points above Minnesota, which needed just one goal to beat Tampa Bay.
Montreal beat Boston for the sixth time in a row. After Desharnais fired in a rebound for the go-ahead goal, Max Pacioretty added an empty-netter 20 seconds later.
Tomas Plekanec and Lars Eller also scored for Montreal, which has points in five straight games.
St. Louis scored three times in the third period to win 4-0 at Nashville and make it five victories in six games.
Goaltender Jake Allen made 45 saves while Colton Parayko, Alex Pietrangelo, Scottie Upshall and Alexander Steen scored.
The Rangers winning streak reached five with a 4-1 victory at Arizona, with goalie Antti Raanta holding off the Coyotes until he conceded with five second left.
Rantaa, backup to first-team goalie Henrik Lundqvist, had 39 saves. He has allowed two goals across his three games.
Jesper Fast, J.T. Miller, Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes scored for the Rangers. The Miller and Kreider goals went through the legs of goalie Mike Smith, leading to a change in net for Arizona.
The Coyotes foiled Raanta’s shutout bid when Shane Doan scored on a power play with 4.6 seconds to play.
Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk made 31 saves for his second shutout this season as the Wild beat Tampa Bay 1-0.
Jared Spurgeon scored the lone goal for Minnesota, which was playing its first game without start forward Zach Parise, who is out for at least a week with a knee injury.
Dubnyk posted his seventh shutout in 51 games for the Wild, who won for the sixth time in seven home games.
Tampa Bay has scored one goal or fewer in six of the past eight games.
Philadelphia ended a run of six straight defeats with a 3-0 win at Winnipeg.
Michal Neuvirth made 28 saves. All three of his wins this season have come from shutouts.
Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds scored on the power play and Matt Read added an empty-net goal with 1:35 left. Coming into the game, the Flyers had not scored on their previous 16 power plays over seven games.
The Jets were shut out for the first time this season.
Los Angeles’ Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar scored 55 seconds apart late in the second period and the Kings went on to beat Florida 4-1.
Jeff Carter and Milan Lucic also scored for the Kings, who beat Florida at home for the seventh straight time.
Nick Bjugstad scored for the Panthers, who have lost five straight games and have not scored a third-period goal in any of them.
Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau scored twice and had an assist to lead the Flames past Pittsburgh 5-2, ending the Penguins’ six-game winning streak.
Carolina’s Jordan Staal scored 2:51 into overtime to lift the Hurricanes past Ottawa 3-2.
Washington’s Alex Ovechkin had a goal in regulation and scored in the fourth round of the shootout to lift the Capitals past Toronto 3-2.
Buffalo’s Rasmus Ristolainen scored his second goal of the game with 16.8 seconds left to give the Sabres a 3-2 victory over Vancouver.
Anaheim notched a fourth consecutive win by beating San Jose 1-0, with the only goal coming from Corey Perry on a breakaway early in the first period.
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