MONTREAL – Tomas Fleischmann scored and Carey Price made 25 saves for the shutout as the Montreal Canadiens made team history by starting a season with a five straight wins with a 3-0 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday night.
Dale Weise and Tomas Plekanec, with an empty-net effort, also scored for the Canadiens (5-0-0), who handed the Rangers (3-2-0) a second straight defeat.
Despite powerhouse Canadiens teams that won a record 24 Stanley Cups, the previous club record for wins to start a season was four, last accomplished in 1977-78.
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There was playoff-like speed and intensity in the battle between last season’s two top regular season clubs, marked by a thrilling duel between perhaps the world’s two best goalies _ Carey Price for Montreal and Henrik Lundqvist for New York.
Montreal outshot the Rangers 32-25.
The Canadiens scored the first goal for the fifth time in as many games 8:46 into the second period as David Desharnais kept a puck in at the blue line and then saw his shot go off Ryan McDonagh. Fleischmann batted the bouncing puck past Henrik Lundqvist on the shot side.
The end of the third saw two of the NHL’s top goalies at their finest. Montreal killed a two-man new York Advantage when Carey Price made a brilliant stop short side on Derek Stepan and thwarted Rick Nash on a short-range blast.
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At the other end, Lundqvist snared a bullet from Alex Galchenyuk. The Swede then kept the Rangers in the game in the third by stopping Brian Flynn on a breakaway and robbing a wide open Desharnais from close range.
He was finally beaten again at 17:55 when Weise picked out an opening with a shot from the right circle. Plekanec then put his fourth of the season into an open net.
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