MONTREAL (AP) — Brian Flynn scored a tie-breaking goal late in the second period and the Montreal Canadiens held on to edge the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on Wednesday night in a wild opening game of their first-round playoff series.
Flynn also had two assists for the first three-point game of his career.
Canadiens star defenseman P.K. Subban was given a five-minute major and game misconduct after slashing Ottawa rookie Mark Stone in the wrist midway through the second period.
Tomas Plekanec and Torrey Mitchell scored 15 seconds apart in a frenetic second period that saw five players get goals in less than five minutes. Lars Eller scored short-handed as part of the barrage.
Mika Zibanejad and Kyle Turris got power-play goals in the middle period for the Senators. Milan Michalek was credited with the game’s first goal, which Montreal’s Andre Markov tipped into his own net 12 minutes in.
Montreal has a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference series heading into Game 2 on Friday night.
The nasty, emotion-filled match featured the first goals as Canadiens by late-season pick-ups Flynn and Mitchell.
The Bell Centre crowd was roaring until Michalek got credit for the opening goal, which was put into the net by Montreal defenseman Andrei Markov. A rebound off the end boards got past two players and Markov tried to tuck it into Price’s pads when it went in.
The game broke open when the Canadiens scored twice in a 15-second span of the second period, the fastest two playoff goals by Montreal since 1998, with Mitchell and Plekanec scoring.
But only 6 seconds later, Eller went off for slashing. Seven seconds after that, Subban took a chop at Mark Stone’s hands and the Senators scoring leader went down in pain and rushed off for treatment. Subban was given a five-minute major and game misconduct.
The Senators scored twice through Turris and Zibanejad and conceded the short-handed goal to Eller during the penalty.
Then Flynn came out of a corner and slid the puck past Ottawa goalie Andrew Hammond to give Montreal the lead with 2:43 left in the period.
Stone, who went into the playoffs on a nine-game points streak, returned to play, left again late in the second period, then returned midway through the third frame.
It was a shaky game for Hammond, who got his team into the playoffs by going 20-1-2 down the stretch. Shots were 39-33 in Montreal’s favor.
Notes: A moment of silence was held before the game for Senators assistant coach Mark Reeds, who died this week of cancer at age 55. . . . Canadiens scoring leader Max Pacioretty sat out with an upper body injury but may return for Game 2 on Friday. . . . Michalek was back for the first time since he had an upper body injury March 21.
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