Canadiens gut out 5-4 win over Blues

Joel Armia scored twice as the Montreal Canadiens rallied to defeat the visiting St. Louis Blues 5-4 on Saturday.

Kirby Dach, Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson also scored for the Canadiens, who won for just the second time in 12 games. Nick Suzuki, Jake Evans and Evgenii Dadonov each had two assists and Jake Allen made 18 saves.

Brandon Saad, Alexey Toropchenko, Nikita Alexandrov and Pavel Buchnevich scored for the Blues, and Jordan Binnington made 22 saves.

The Blues lost another defenseman when Robert Bortuzzo departed in the first period with a lower-body injury. St. Louis was already missing Nick Leddy, Torey Krug, Marco Scandella and Scott Perunovich.

After Binnington denied Christian Dvorak's break-in, the Blues moved up 1-0 on a two-on-one run rush with Saad converting Brayden Schenn pass with 35 seconds left in the first period. That was Saad's fifth goal in five games.

Helped by four power plays in the second period, Montreal outshot the Blues 10-4 and outscored them 2-1.

After the Canadiens survived a pair of two-on-one rushes in the first 30 seconds of the second period, they tied the game 1-1 on Armia's even-strength goal pirouetting out of the left corner.

The Blues moved up 2-1 when Alexandrov stole the puck and Tyler Pitlick fed Toropchenko breaking in on Allen.

Montreal generated myriad scoring chances with its man advantages. Dach finally tied the game at 2-2 with a power-play slot shot with 3:45 left in the period.

Caufield scored 36 seconds into the third period after Suzuki poked the puck to him from behind the net. But Alexandrov tied the game 3-3 with his first NHL goal, scored on a rebound conversion.

Buchnevich put the Blues up 4-3 with a point-blank power-play goal at 4:42.

Armia tied the game 4-4 at 7:20 with a rebound conversion following Evans' shot, then Anderson put Montreal up 5-4 at 11:30 after Jonathan Drouin drove the net.