Nash lifts Jackets in shootout

Associated Press

montreal

Rick Nash’s shootout goal lifted the Columbus Blue Jackets to a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.

GK Curtis Sanford was perfect in the tiebreaker, turning aside David Desharnais, Max Pacioretty and Brian Gionta. Gionta scored a goal with 1:21 left in regulation to send the game to overtime.

Andrei Kostitsyn scored with 1.5 seconds left in the first to draw Montreal even at 1.

R.J. Umberger had a goal and an assist, and Vinny Prospal also scored for Columbus, which had lost three of four.

Sanford made 18 saves in his 10th straight start for the Blue Jackets. The 32-year-old goalie signed with Columbus as a free agent in July after spending the last two seasons in the Canadiens’ organization with AHL Hamilton.

Carey Price stopped 26 shots for Montreal, which returned home after a 1-1-1 West Coast trip.

Gionta, who missed half of the second period after he was cut on the face by Blue Jackets defenseman Marc Methot’s skate, tapped home a puck in the crease after Tomas Plekanec’s centering pass struck former Canadiens defenseman James Wisniewski in front.

Prospal quieted the sold-out crowd just over 2 minutes in when he beat Price for his seventh goal.

Columbus held a 10-7 shots advantage in the first period, but Kostitsyn made the Canadiens’ last one count. He drove in and snapped a shot past Sanford for his third goal in four games.

Umberger gave Columbus a 2-1 lead off the ensuing faceoff. He took defenseman Nikita Nikitin’s lead pass and drove the left side to beat Price between the pads with a low wrist shot at 11:14.

Price stuck out his left pad to deny Umberger on a breakaway to keep it a one-goal game with less than a minute left in the second after Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban turned over the puck and fell inside the Blue Jackets’ blue line.