Montreal Canadiens Pushes The Hurricanes Away.

The Montreal Canadiens extended their lead in the standings over the Carolina Hurricanes to six points with a difficult 4-3 victory at the Bell centre.

The Canadiens sent their backup goaltender, Alex Auld, in action as Carey Price was unable to perform due to a virus. The backup goalie had a difficult time, allowing soft goals and sending dangerous rebounds in front of his own net all evening long.

Andrei Kostitsyn, late in the game, scored the winning goal on a world-class deflection that sailed away from goaltender Cam Ward. Kostitsyn was also the accomplice on Lars Eller's goal during the second period.

The club could use more contribution from AK-46 these days.

Brent Sopel (picture) was in uniform for his first game with Montreal yesterday after being acquired by the club earlier this week. The veteran defense men will greatly help the Canadiens' depleted defensive unit.

Here's the Eastern Conference standings at this date. A heated playoff race is brewing up and all the points are important at this stage.

1			Philadelphia	62	40	16	6	86
2			Tampa Bay	61	36	18	7	79
3			Boston	61	35	19	7	77
4			Pittsburgh	64	37	21	6	80
5			Washington	63	33	20	10	76
6			Montreal	63	33	23	7	73
7			NY Rangers	63	33	26	4	70
8			Carolina	63	29	25	9	67
9			Buffalo	61	29	25	7	65
10			Toronto	62	27	27	8	62
11			Atlanta	62	25	26	11	61
12			Florida	61	26	28	7	59
13			New Jersey	61	26	31	4	56
15			Ottawa	62	21	32	9	51