MONTREAL — This is not the way to push for a playoff berth.
Jonathan Drouin and Nikita Scherbak scored in the second period and the Canadiens beat the Islanders 3-1 on Wednesday night to extend their points streak to five games.
Mathew Barzal scored his 18th of the season for the Islanders. They are winless in their last four games and 4-8-2 in their last 14. The Islanders are now four points behind Columbus for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Paul Byron also scored for the Canadiens, and Antti Niemi, who played in place of the injured Carey Price, made 27 saves to help the Canadiens improve to 2-0-3 in their last five. Price has has been out since taking a shot on the mask in a 3-2 overtime loss in Philadelphia on Feb. 20. Niemi and Charlie Lindgren have gone 2-0-2 in his absence.
“I felt overall really good in practice and games for the last little while now and I’ll try to keep it going,” Niemi said.
It was wide open in the first period, with the teams trading chances and each coming up with a goal. The highlight was the Islanders getting three breakaways while killing a penalty, although they failed to score on them.
Barzal took a pass at the Montreal blue line, blew past rookie defenseman Noah Juulsen and beat Niemi with a deke to the backhand at 3:50. Bryan tied it with 8:58 left in the period, beating Jaroslav Halak to the top corner off an assist from Drouin.
Drouin gave the Canadiens the lead on a power play at 8:29 of the second. He moved into the left circle to take a feed from Jeff Petry and put a shot inside the far post.
“I need to be better for the guys right now,” Halak said. “We need every point. That second goal shouldn’t go in. We had some chances on our side, we just didn’t hit the net or they blocked shots. We need to find a way. It starts with me.”
Scherbak scored with 6:23 to go in the period.