MONTREAL – Carey Price made 38 saves for his second shutout in his last three starts and Alex Semin scored his first goal for Montreal as the Canadiens downed the St. Louis Blues 3-0 in the NHL on Tuesday night.
Max Pacioretty and Torrey Mitchell also scored for the Canadiens, who stretched their team-record winning run from the start of the season to seven games.
The Blues (5-2-0) ended a four-game winning streak. They finished a six-game road trip with a solid four wins and a pair of defeats.
Price, the league’s most valuable player and top goaltender last season, has allowed only six goals in six starts. It was the 36th shutout of his career.
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He posted a 25-save shutout against the New York Rangers on Oct. 15 and allowed one goal on 22 shots in a 4-1 win over Detroit on Saturday night to earn NHL first star of the week honours.
His save of the night was a spectacular glove effort early in the second frame on Vladimir Tarasenko, who was held off the scoresheet for the first time this season.
The Blues dominated the opening period with relentless forechecking and outshot Montreal 17-10, but the Canadiens were the fresher team as the game wore on. Jake Allen made 33 stops for the Blues.
Pacioretty got the opening goal at 18:27 of the first. Tomas Plekanec’s shot went off Jay Bouwmeester’s skate and off Pacioretty, who was skating across the front of the net, before sliding past Allen.
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Semin, a summer free-agent signing, scored on a spin-around wrist shot from the slot 16:04 into the second. Mitchell put a P.K. Subban rebound into an open side 11:53 into the third.
All of the Canadiens’ wins have been in regulation time.
They went unbeaten (7-0-1) in eight games to start the 1961-62 campaign and have a chance to match that when they play the Sabres in Buffalo on Friday night.
The NHL record for wins to start a season is 10, shared by the 1993-94 Toronto Maple Leafs and 2006-07 Sabres.
The Blues open a five-game homestand Saturday against the New York Islanders.
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