A players' only meeting did little to stop the Montreal Canadiens from enduring their longest home losing streak in more than seven years.
The Carolina Hurricanes not only handed the Canadiens another tough home loss, they also extended their mastery over Montreal at the Bell Centre on Saturday night.
Canadiens winger Tom Kostopoulosis (6) is checked into Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward by defenceman Frantisek Kaberle Saturday night in Montreal.
(Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
Winger Ray Whitney netted a pair of goals and an assist to lead Carolina to a 5-1 win against the slumping Canadiens. Forward Erik Cole added a goal and an assist, while goaltender Cam Ward was brilliant following a 35-save performance.
Winger Andrei Kastsitsyn scored Montreal's only goal of the game.
The Canadiens (14-11-4) have lost four of the last five games, but it's their spiraling home record that has the coaching staff and the organization up in arms.
The team, which was constantly booed by the crowd of 21,273, has now dropped five straight games at the Bell Centre, their longest streak at home since losing seven in a row from Oct. 28-Nov. 20, 2000.
"It's got to turn around quick or we're going to find ourselves in the bottom of the standings fighting to get back in the playoff picture," said Montreal defenceman Mike Komisarek. "If we can take away one thing tonight, we've got to remember that feeling of getting booed off the ice.
"It's got to stick in our heads, because it's not something anyone in this locker room will want to experience again."
Cole even joked that he tried to egg on the hostile Montreal crowd.
"Towards the end of the game I was booing from the penalty box for the fans, just trying to start something for them," he said. "We addressed it … The crowd turned on them a little bit."
After a 4-1 home loss at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday, captain Saku Koivu called a players' only meeting two days later as Montreal travelled to Boston and skated away with a 4-2 win.
But the victory failed to carry over to Saturday night's contest, with Carolina dominating the play through most of the 60 minutes.
While the Hurricanes (16-11-3) have lost two of three to Montreal this season, they have beaten their Canadian rival nine consecutive times at the Bell Centre — a streak that's continued since a loss at Montreal on Feb. 28, 2004.
"We're a totally different team on the road than we are at home," said Canadiens winger Chris Higgins.
"It's so simple on the road, just chip it in and skate after it. But here, it seems like guys are taking shifts off. It should be the opposite, we should be having a better game at home and feeding off the energy in this building."
The Hurricanes began the scoring less than four minutes into the first period off a turnover created by Whitney in the neutral zone.
Matt Cullen found a streaking Erik Cole, who buried a perfect shot behind Canadiens goaltender Carey Price.
Montreal thought it had tied the game minutes later, but the replay official ruled that defenceman Mark Streit used a kicking motion to knock the puck across the goal-line.
The Hurricanes used the momentum of that call to take a 2-0 lead late at 12:13 while on the power play. Staal redirected a point shot by winger Justin Williams that fooled Price.
The Canadiens cut the deficit to 2-1 at 9:36 of the second with a power-play goal. Alex Kovalev directed a shot toward the side of the Carolina net before Kastsitsyn tipped it into the open net.
Carolina regained its two-goal advantage 2:10 later as veteran centre Rod Brind'Amour took a pass from Chad Larose and fired a shot over the blocker of Price.
An ill-advised high-sticking penalty by Koivu led to the Hurricanes' fourth goal as Whitney basted a point shot by Price.
Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau then decided to pull his rookie goaltender for the start of the third period in favour of backup Jaroslav Halak, but Whitney added a goal in the final 20 minutes to complete the scoring.
"I think he knows he needs to be better," Carbonneau said of Price. "But he's a 20-year-old who's still learning a lot, and with that he's probably ahead of the curve. We knew there would be some ups and downs during the course of the year.
"Unfortunately, in the situation we are in right now, we need our goalies and everybody to play well."
With files from the Canadian Press
