Monahan, Canadiens defeat Islanders, spoil Roy return to Montreal

Roy, who won the Stanley Cup twice with the Canadiens, lost in his third game as Islanders coach. He is 1-2-0 since replacing Lane Lambert on Jan. 20.

Monahan had two goals and an assist, and Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist for Montreal (20-21-7), which ended a three-game losing streak. Sam Montembeault made 44 saves.

Bo Horvat, Matt Barzal and Kyle Palmieri scored power-play goals for New York (20-17-11), which came back to tie it after falling behind 3-0 in the first period. Semyon Varlamov made 22 saves in his first start since he sustained a lower-body injury Jan. 2 and was forced to leave during the first period of a 5-4 overtime loss against the Colorado Avalanche.

Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher was assessed a match penalty for elbowing Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech in the head on an open-ice hit at 11:52 of the third. Pelech was attended to on the ice before he skated off with an Islanders trainer and went to the dressing room.

Barzal cut the lead to 3-2 at 14:52 with a shot over Montembeault’s left shoulder from a sharp angle for scored New York’s second power-play goal.

Palmieri tied it 3-3 at 16:28 when he scored from the left side of the net on a shot from the point by Noah Dobson that was redirected.

Monahan scored from the high slot off a feed from Josh Anderson to make it 4-3.

Suzuki’s power-play goal at 7:06 of the first period put the Canadiens up 1-0, finishing off a crisp passing play with Monahan and Juraj Slafkovsky from the goalmouth.

Cole Caufield made it 2-0 at 11:36 when he blew around Islanders defenseman Samuel Bolduc in front of the net and tucked a shot past Varlamov glove side.

Caufield has 10 points (six goals, four assists) during an eight-game point streak.

Monahan pushed it to 3-0 with Montreal’s second power-play goal at 12:19.

Islanders coach Patrick Roy used his timeout after the goal, nodding up towards the scoreboard a few times as he spoke to the Islanders players around the bench.

Horvat scored his 20th goal on a power play at 3:02 of the second period to cut it to 3-1.