Aggressive Habs beat Penguins, 5-3

MONTREAL (AP) — The Montreal Canadiens took the attack to the Pittsburgh Penguins and were rewarded with their third win in a row.

Brian Gionta had two goals and an assist and Jaroslav Halak made 18 saves to win his third straight start, leading Montreal to a 5-3 victory over Pittsburgh on Saturday.

Gionta beat Brent Johnson for his second goal of the game — his 16th of the season — to put Montreal up by three 10:47 into the third.

Gionta recorded his first two points of the game 43 seconds apart in the second, scoring on a breakaway at 9:38 before assisting on Scott Gomez’s power-play goal that put the Canadiens up 3-1 at 10:21.

“We were initiating the play,” Gionta said. “We weren’t sitting back and waiting for them to come to us. Against a team like that, so skilled, so offensively talented, you need to initiate the play and get them back on their heels.”

Tomas Plekanec scored his 15th goal 29 seconds into the game and Mathieu Darche restored the Canadiens’ two-goal lead at 4-2 with his second goal 7:15 into the third.

“It was a special feeling scoring in the Bell Centre for the Canadiens,” said Darche, a 33-year-old Montreal native who played for McGill University. “It was a rush of adrenaline and it was nice because it gave us an extra goal lead. With a team like Pittsburgh you never have too many goals because you know they have the firepower to come back.”

Pascal Dupuis, Bill Guerin and Evgeni Malkin scored for the Penguins, who had won two in a row and four of five. “I don’t think we played a very good game today as a team, and that’s a very disappointing way to lose a match,” Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.

Today at noon, the Penguins will play the red-hot Capitals in snow-covered Washington, D.C. The Capitals have won 13 straight games.

The Penguins flew to Newark, N.J., following the game and planned to make the rest of the trip by bus.

Marc-Andre Fleury, who was replaced by Johnson after Darche’s goal, made 24 saves. Johnson stopped three shots.

Pittsburgh, which was outshot 32-21, hadn’t played since Monday, when Sidney Crosby recorded his third hat trick of the season in a 5-4 come-from-behind win over Buffalo.

“I think the media has made a big deal about having four days,” Bylsma said. “It’s not that odd to have that in a normal NHL season.”

Brock Trotter made his NHL debut for Montreal, one day after he was called up from Hamilton of the AHL along with Ryan White and David Desharnais.

Playing as a line, the Canadiens’ rookies drew penalties on back-to-back shifts in the second, including Brooks Orpik’s interference call at 10:09, moments after Gionta scored on a breakaway to give Montreal a 2-1 lead.