Canadiens deal Penguins their third loss in a row

February 4, 2009 at 12:02a.m.

MONTREAL (AP) — Chris Higgins and Maxim Lapierre scored second-period goals and Andrei Kostitsyn scored with 4:15 left to seal the Montreal Canadiens’ 4-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.

Roman Hamrlik scored in the first period and assisted on Lapierre’s goal 15:07 into the second, the third straight goal by Montreal, which took a 3-1 lead.

Evgeni Malkin drew Pittsburgh within 3-2 midway through the third when he scored for the third game in a row for his team-leading 22nd goal of the season.

Kostitsyn, reunited on a line with Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec, scored with a second-effort shot in the goal mouth at 15:45 to restore the Canadiens’ two-goal lead.

Carey Price made 23 saves as Montreal won for the second time in three games following a season-high four-game losing streak.

Penguins left wing Luca Caputi opened the scoring 2:30 into his NHL debut. Caputi, a 20-year-old who was called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL on Monday, got credit for the opening goal when he scored off a goal mouth scramble after he drove the net on his first shift.

Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 31 shots for Pittsburgh, which lost its third in a row (0-2-1), and fourth in five.

Hamrlik drew the Canadiens even at 1 with his third goal of the season 4:31 into the first. Sergei Kostitsyn cut off Fleury’s clearing attempt behind the net and fed a pass into the slot for the veteran defenseman, who scored as the Pittsburgh goalie tried to scramble back into position.

Higgins scored an unassisted goal midway through the second to give Montreal a 2-1 lead. Higgins drove in on a breakaway and fired a shot past Fleury into the top of the net 11:05 into the second for his second goal in three games, and seventh overall.

Lapierre made it a two-goal lead with his 10th goal at 15:07. Lapierre was at the left edge of the crease to take Max Pacioretty’s backhand pass from the end boards and tuck the puck past Fleury.

Montreal’s lineup took a double hit two days earlier as both center Robert Lang and left wing Guillaume Latendresse were lost to injury in the third period of Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Boston.

Lang had surgery Sunday evening to repair a torn Achilles’ tendon and is out indefinitely. Latendresse suffered an upper-body injury — likely to his left shoulder — when he slammed into the boards late in the game.