Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price makes a save against Toronto Maple Leafs' Leo Komarov during second period NHL hockey action in Montreal, Saturday, November 19, 2016.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Paul Byron and Alex Galchenyuk scored and Carey Price made 31 saves as the Montreal Canadiens ended a three-game win-less run with a 2-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
The Canadiens (14-3-2) have won 12 straight games against their oldest rival dating to Jan. 18, 2014.
William Nylander scored for the Leafs (8-7-3), who were coming off a pair of home wins in which they scored 12 goals.
Montreal fired 29 shots at Frederik Andersen.
Byron was on the doorstep to jam the rebound of a Shea Weber shot past Andersen 15:45 into the opening period. It was the diminutive winger's seventh of the season, only four shy of his career high for a season.
The Canadiens were only five seconds into a power play when Galchenyuk got his seventh of the season. He won a faceoff back to Weber, who slid the puck to Alexander Radulov on the right wing for a perfect feed in front for the Canadiens' scoring leader to score into an open side at 0:32 of the second frame.
Toronto struck back on the man advantage at 8:47 on an equally sweet three-way passing play, this time in tight traffic as the puck went from Auston Matthews to Leo Komarov to Nylander alone on the right side for his sixth of the season.
It was the second meeting this season between the rivals. The Canadiens won, also by 2-1, at home on Oct. 29. Their next two games are in Toronto on Jan. 7 and Feb. 25, 2017.
Radulov was back in the lineup after missing two games with an illness. Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty played his 500th NHL game.
Martin Marincin, Peter Holland and Frank Corrado were scratched for Toronto, while Montreal sat out Daniel Carr and Greg Pateryn.