Bruins on a hot streak

NHL teams

"This week was big for us, six points in four days," Boston defenseman Don Sweeney explained. "We had our sights set on this in the beginning of the week because if we could win, we could really move up in the division. If we don't win, we could watch teams leapfrog over us. We didn't want that."

Boston scored all five of their goals in the third period, including two by Sergei Samsonov in a six-minute span. Ray Bourque, Don Sweeney and Jason Allison each had a goal in the Bruins' most explosive period in nearly two years.

"We weren't skating much in the first two periods," Burns said. "We were sort of hanging around. I mixed up the lines a little bit, putting Anson Carter with Samsonov, we got a little offense out of that. It seemed to get us going."

Montreal is buried in the basement of the Northeast Division with a 7-11-2 record. The Habs have gone 1-3 since a big six-player trade with Chicago on Nov 16. Saku Koivu, who missed the last 12 games with an abdominal strain, scored Montrea's lone goal.

"We're getting a lot of luck, but its all bad," Canadiens coach Alain Vigneault said. "We're getting more and more injuries and we're having trouble sustaining the pace of the NHL. The difference between the first two periods an that third period was bad breaks, we got down 2-1 and instead of bouncing back, they just poured it on."