Newhook Scores Twice as Canadiens Edge Ducks 4-3 to End Four-Game Skid

ANAHEIM, Calif. — With 3:20 left on the clock Wednesday night, Jake Evans carried the puck into the Ducks' zone on a 2-on-1 and set up Alex Newhook, who finished the play. It was Newhook's second goal of the game and it gave the Montreal Canadiens a 4-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks, ending a four-game losing streak.

Montreal had been in control early and then let that control slip. Newhook scored 5:59 into the first period, just after a power play expired, and Kaiden Guhle added his second goal of the season 38 seconds later. The burst mattered to a team that had allowed the opening goal in four of its previous five games. Evans said it gave the players confidence, and that the Canadiens were coming in waves at the start.

Anaheim answered quickly in the second. Mason McTavish cut the lead to 2-1 less than a minute into the period, tipping in a Leo Carlsson pass on a power play. Fifty-six seconds later Mike Matheson restored the two-goal margin with a wrist shot from the high slot that beat John Gibson.

McTavish struck again at the six-minute mark of the second, making it 3-2. Frank Vatrano set that one up, spinning around on a centering pass after chasing down a pass from Tristan Luneau. Vatrano tied the game at 3 with 8:29 left in the third, beating Sam Montembeault five-hole for his 13th goal of the season. So Montreal had blown leads of 2-0 and 3-1 before Newhook's winner.

Montembeault made 30 saves, and Gibson stopped 24 for Anaheim. The win was Montreal's second on the road in six games and only its third in 10 overall. Montembeault noted the team is on the road for about 10 days, so winning the first game of the trip was a priority. Evans was less satisfied with the way the game ended up being played. He said the Canadiens were gripping their sticks and worried about losing it in the third, and that there is still a lot to clean up. Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said he loved his team's compete level, acknowledged the game could have gone the other way, and said the team needed the win.

For Anaheim it was a fourth straight loss. McTavish finished with two goals and an assist, his second multi-goal game, and Vatrano had a goal and an assist. Coach Greg Cronin called them close games the Ducks could win, and said they were winning them a month ago. He said the McTavish-Vatrano line was dominant, but that the team cannot keep relying on one line almost every night.

There was one statistical oddity for the Ducks. McTavish, Luneau, Carlsson and defenceman Pavel Mintyukov, who had the secondary assist on McTavish's second-period goal, all recorded points. That made Anaheim the fourth team in the past 30 years to get a point from four players under 21 in one game, and the first since the 2011-12 Colorado Avalanche. Luneau, the 53rd overall pick in the 2022 draft, got his first career point in his third game.

Both teams play again Friday. Montreal visits San Jose, and Anaheim hosts Los Angeles.