Higgins notches hat trick, Habs shut out Senators

“The hat trick was definitely for my mom,” Higgins said

“These are big games for us,” Senators center Jason Spezza said. “These guys are ahead of us in the standings, and they’re in our division and they’re a really good team to match up against to see how your team’s doing, so it’s obviously disappointing.”

Montreal’s Tom Kostopoulos began serving a three-game suspension handed down by the league Monday for his hit from behind on Toronto’s Mike Van Ryn on Saturday.

Higgins opened the scoring when he beat Auld with a shot from the left side with 3 seconds remaining in defenseman Ryan O’Byrne’s delay of game penalty for putting the puck over the glass.

Robert Lang got the Canadiens’ second delay of game penalty for the same infraction 11:52 into the second, but Montreal’s penalty-killing unit was so successful that at one point it appeared as if it was conducting a 4-on-5 power play.

“That was kind of the turning point,” said Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, who called that particular effort “a really sloppy power play.”

Higgins finished off a fine pass by Sergei Kostitsyn with a shot from the right side past Auld at 14:11 in the second.

Lang had a hand in the Canadiens’ third goal at 15:39 when he won a draw against Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond and drew the puck back in the Senators’ zone.

Latendresse stepped into the bouncing puck and drove a slap shot over Auld’s left arm into the top right corner for his first goal in 11 games.

Source: more of this story at CBS Sports