Joel Armia scored two shorthanded goals and added an assist to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-1 home victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday and put them one game away from claiming their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Corey Perry, Artturi Lehkonen and Nick Suzuki also scored in the win, while goaltender Carey Price made 25 saves for the Canadiens, who have a 3-0 lead on the Jets in the best-of-seven series.
The Canadiens will try to complete the sweep at home on Monday.
Adam Lowry scored for the Jets, who are yet to lead at any point of this series.
Connor Hellebuyck stopped 28 shots.
For their sixth consecutive game, the Canadiens opened the scoring when Perry netted his third goal of the playoffs before the five-minute mark. After gaining the puck behind the net, Perry headed to the front and sent a shot inside the far post.
Lehkonen’s first of the postseason doubled the lead before the midway point of the second period. Shortly after Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler hit the crossbar, Lehkonen buried the rebound amid a scramble.
Armia’s first shorthanded goal extended the edge to 3-0. After he stole the puck in his own zone to create a two-on-one, Armia did a toe drag to get around a diving defender and buried the shot at 13:41 of the period.
Lowry put the Jets on the board with 2:09 remaining in the second with his second goal of the playoffs, but Suzuki all but quashed Winnipeg’s comeback hopes at the 8:52 mark of the third period when he converted Cole Caufield’s pass for a power-play goal that made it a 4-1 game.
Armia, who played three seasons for the Jets before being traded to Montreal in June 2018, notched his second of the game with an empty-net goal at 16:42 to round out the scoring.
While the Jets received some good news with forward Paul Stastny returning to the lineup after missing the first two games due to injury, the Canadiens were without defenseman Jeff Petry after he appeared to get a finger caught in a camera hole in the glass late in the second period.
–Field Level Media