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Canadiens ride Carey Price's hot hand to a 5-2 win over Senators

Goalie earns his fifth straight victory and his sixth in his last seven games.

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If the Canadiens are going to make the playoffs, this was one of those games they have to win.

They did, but it wasn’t as easy as the final score might indicate as the Canadiens rallied from a 2-1 deficit after two periods to beat the Ottawa Senators 5-2 at the Bell Centre.

The Senators are below the Canadiens in the standings and were playing their second game in two nights, following a 4-2 win in Detroit on Friday, while the Canadiens hadn’t played since Thursday’s 6-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

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The Canadiens improved their record to 17-11-5 and moved past the Boston Bruins into the first wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. A loss in a game like this one against the Senators could have come back to haunt the Canadiens in the end.

While the Canadiens came up with the win, their power play is already haunting them as they went 0-for-4 against the Senators and are now 0-for-22 in their last seven games. The Canadiens are now ranked 30th in the NHL on the power play with a “success” rate of 12.3 per cent. It’s actually a failure rate of 87.7.

Matthew Peca, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Shea Weber, Paul Byron and Jonathan Drouin (empty net) scored for the Canadiens, while Colin White and Mikkel Boedker replied for the Senators. The Canadiens outshot the Senators 47-18.

Goalie Carey Price earned his fifth straight victory and his sixth in his last seven games, improving his record to 13-8-4 with a 2.90 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage. If the Canadiens can get their power play to work and if Price can stay on his game, this team has a legitimate shot at making the playoffs, something few people thought possible at the start of the season.

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“I think there is a difference in his game,” coach Claude Julien said about Price a couple of hours before the game. “He started the season OK. I think he had a little bit of a lull there, but there’s no doubt he’s feeling it right now. I think he’s playing pretty good hockey. There is a difference in Carey, but only a difference in that little time frame there that he was struggling (earlier in the season) there a little bit. But he’s back on track.

“The team in front has a lot of confidence in him and there’s no doubt when he’s at his best your team in front feels it,” the coach added. “At the same time, I think he’s our No. 1 goaltender and you like to play him as much as you can and give him the proper rest when the time comes. As long as he’s playing some decent hockey, you’re able to do that.”

Peca opened the scoring at 3:39 of the first period when he banged in a rebound from the slot past Senators goalie Mike McKenna for his third goal of the season and his second in two games after being a healthy scratch for the previous three games.

White tied it 1-1 only 20 seconds later on a goal the Canadiens challenged for goalie interference, but the call on the ice stood. On the play, the Senators’ Brady Tkachuk looked like he was going to carry the puck behind the net, but then tried to stuff it in on the short side. His stick hit Price’s left pad and the goalie fell backward awkwardly with White banging in the loose puck in the crease. Price reacted like he might have been injured on the play, but the Canadiens’ training staff never came out to see him and he stayed in the game and looked fine.

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Less than a minute after White scored, the Canadiens put the puck in the net, but there was one problem: Brendan Gallagher kicked it in from the side of the crease (where else?) so it didn’t count.

The Senators took the lead at 9:11 of the second period when Boedker took advantage of a defensive breakdown by the Canadiens. Defencemen Jordie Benn and Noah Juulsen both got caught behind the net with Mark Stone winning the puck battle and then feeding an open Boedker in the slot, and he beat Price with a quick shot.

Kotkaniemi tied it up when he scored his fourth goal of the season on a shot Sens goalie McKenna would like back at 2:06 of third period. Just over a minute later Phillip Danault appeared to give the Canadiens the lead when he scored on a beautiful pass from Artturi Lehkonen, who was being hooked to the ice by Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot. In what might be the worst call by an NHL official this season — and there have been a lot of them — Lehkonen was called for embellishment and the goal didn’t count. Julien and the Bell Centre crowd were furious, but terrible judgment by a referee can’t be overturned on a video review.

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Weber ended up saving the day for the Canadiens — and the referees — when he scored the winning goal at 10:06 of the third period, shortly after a power play had ended. Byron added an insurance goal at 13:37, Drouin scored his empty-netter at 17:31 and the Canadiens put two more important points up in the standings.

This was the fourth and final meeting between these teams this season, with the Canadiens posting a 3-0-1 record.

The Canadiens are back in action Monday night when the Boston Bruins will visit the Bell Centre (7:30 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio).

scowan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/StuCowan1

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