QUEBEC CITY, Que. – Alexander Semin scored his first goal of the pre-season as the Montreal Canadiens downed the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-1 on Monday in the first NHL game at the new Videotron Centre in Quebec City.
Lars Eller, Brian Finn and Dale Weise, with an empty-net goal, also scored for Montreal, while Carey Price went all the way in goal and made 19 saves.
Beau Bennett scored for Pittsburgh.
The 18,259 seats were packed mainly with Canadiens fans, although Quebec City is pushing hard to bring back the defunct Nordiques, who were Montreal’s hottest rivals from 1979 to 1995.
Off-season free agent signing Semin scored 13:36 into the game when he took a drop pass from Alex Galchenyuk and saw the rebound of his shot pushed in inadvertently by Pittsburgh defenceman Kris Letang.
Fate handed it back at 15:28 when Bennett tied it on a power play when his pass from the left side was redirected past Price by Montreal forward Dale Weise.
The Canadiens were on a four-minute power play when Eller shifted an Andrei Markov pass behind Marc-Andre Fleury.
Flynn defected a Markov shot past Fleury 2:31 into the third.
The Canadiens had most of their veterans on the ice while the Penguin sent mostly prospects, electing to leave Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel at home.
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