Toonstruck 1 » MONTREAL (AP) — Antti Niemi experienced two firsts

in net for the Montreal Canadiens.First New Jersey Devils Hoodies Authentic , Niemi made a career-high 52 stops as the Canadiens extended their win streak to three games with a 5-1 victory over the Florida Panthers.Niemi finished one save shy of the Canadiens’ franchise record for saves in a game by a goaltender.With seconds ticking off the clock in the third period, the Bell Centre fans chanted Niemi’s name after every big save.“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that before,” Niemi said. “So it’s pretty overwhelming. It’s great after all my ups and downs to have a couple of good games and be able to do that.“It’s great. I don’t know what to say.”The Panthers fired 84 pucks at Niemi’s goal, with 53 hitting the target and only one making it past the backup goalie. The franchise record is 53 saves held by Carey Price (Nov. 14, 2009) and Wayne Thomas (Mar. 10, 1974).Florida lost its seventh game in a row, extending the team’s longest skid of the season. Their last victory was on Dec. 31, against the Detroit Red Wings.The 35-year-old Niemi, who has won his last three starts, made 21 saves in the third period alone to improve to 8-4-1 on the season. His previous personal save record was 48, set on March 3, 2017, in a 2-1 loss to the Bruins.“He played unbelievable tonight. It was crazy,” Jordie Benn said. “Nemo stole the game. They had some really close-call looks right in tight. Watching him in net tonight New Jersey Devils Hats Authentic , the guys were going nuts on the bench. It was good to see.”Niemi set the tone with a solid glove save on rookie Juho Lamikko midway through the first period.At the start of the third, Niemi made a big right pad save on Aleksander Barkov to preserve Montreal’s two-goal lead, and another minutes later on Henrik Borgstrom.“He’s the guy who’s literally the hardest working guy in practice,” said Max Domi, who snapped a 17-game goalless drought. “He works on his game on a daily basis. It’s a very well-deserved performance by him. He’s been in this league so long for a reason. He showed that tonight.”Mike Hoffman was the only Panthers player to beat Niemi. He scored a highlight-reel, one-handed goal on a breakaway at 14:11 of the first period, following a bad giveaway by Canadiens center Michael Chaput.Montreal answered 29 seconds into the second period when captain Shea Weber fired a slap shot past James Reimer on the power play, a rare goal for the Canadiens with the man advantage.Claude Julien’s team had not scored on their previous 27 power-play opportunities at Bell Centre, dating to Dec. 1.Phillip Danault gave the Canadiens a 2-1 lead at 10:44 of the second, a no-look backhand shot after Weber’s shot bounced off the end boards behind Reimer.Domi scored his first goal since Dec. 9 when he beat an out-of-position Reimer at 16:53 with a wrist shot from the slot.Jesperi Kotkaniemi added another for Montreal with 5:38 left in the third period before Gallagher scored into the empty net with 1:36 remaining in the encounter.“Tough road trip obviously physically and mentally,” said Panthers coach Bob Boughner. “We asked the guys to come out tonight with our best effort and get rewarded. We did everything except putting the puck in the back of the net. You have to give Niemi a ton of credit.”The Canadiens were playing in the second half of back-to-back games after a 3-2 overtime victory in Boston on Monday.Roberto Luongo was expected to start between the pipes for Florida but Reimer got the nod instead in a game-time decision. Reimer stopped 23 shots in defeat.Notes: The Panthers outshot the Canadiens 53-28. . Jordie Benn earned his 100th NHL point in his 439th game. . Defenseman Karl Alzner was sent down to the AHL’s Laval Rocket.UP NEXTPanthers: Home against Toronto on Friday.Canadiens: At Columbus on Friday. FRISCO, Texas (AP) The first time Ken Hitchcock became the Dallas Stars coach more than two decades ago, his role and the setting were much different in a southern market that was still pretty fresh to hockey and the NHL.”It was half coaching and half community involvement, trying to build the brand Custom New Jersey Devils Jerseys ,” said Hitchcock, who got his first NHL head coaching job in January 1996 when the Stars were in only their third season in Big D. ”It was a really exciting, different observation for all of us. … At least once or twice a week, we were meeting with groups to just explain what hockey was about.”Hitchcock found himself talking to people who really had no idea what was happening on the ice or why there were fights. He even had to answer at least one media question about why goalies had bigger pads than other players.But fans in North Texas certainly understand and embrace champions. The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys were already five-time Super Bowl champions before the Stars reached the NHL’s pinnacle in winning the Stanley Cup in 1999 and then making it back to the finals the next year.The Stars are now in their 25th year in North Texas, and this is Hitchcock’s first season back behind their bench.After missing the playoffs seven of the last nine years, Dallas is 31-19-4 with 66 points this season. The Stars are 7-2-1 their last 10 games and in solid position in the playoff chase with 28 games left in the regular season.”The game’s changed so much, that it’s hard to say Dallas is the reason we can win again with him, or what it may be,” said five-time All-Star center Tyler Seguin , the team’s top goal scorer. ”I think it’s more just his resume of being a successful coach and having successful teams, and I know what it was like to play St. Louis all the time when he was behind that bench, and we want to be the same kind of team in a way.”Hitchcock was still the coach of the Blues two years ago when they knocked Dallas out of the second round of the playoffs.After being fired by the Stars 50 games into the 2001-02 season, Hitchcock also coached in Philadelphia and Columbus. Anaheim’s Randy Carlyle and Montreal’s Claude Julien are also current NHL head coaches back in their original jobs, though both had shorter gaps before returning to their teams last season.Anaheim was still the Mighty Ducks when Carlyle first arrived for the 2005-06 season www.officialislanders.com , and won the Stanley Cup a year later. He was fired early in the 2011-12 season, then was a midseason replacement in Toronto, where he stayed 2 1/2 more seasons after that. The Ducks made it to the Western Conference final in his return last year.Julien was first in Montreal from 2002-06, then spent a season with the New Jersey Devils. He won the Stanley Cup in 2011 and made another final appearance two years later during his 10 seasons with the Boston Bruins.When Hitchcock was first with the Stars, their practice facility was in the middle of the Valley Ranch neighborhood just down the road from the Cowboys’ headquarters.The hockey operations are now based in the still-growing suburb of Frisco, about a half-hour drive north of the downtown Dallas arena where they play games. And the Cowboys are again a nearby neighbor after building a new practice facility and complex in the same area.Hitchcock remembers when players, coaches and other team personnel all lived within a ”very small 10-minute circle of each other” not far from the old neighborhood facility. Their families would run into each other in grocery stores and restaurants.”Now we’re all spread out, and it feels like we’re like the city, the city’s spread out. Frisco used to be a Mexican restaurant, and now it’s a city of I don’t know, it feels like a million people here,” Hitchcock said. ”It felt like we lived in this little town, and then we happened to go downtown to play hockey. … Socially, I haven’t run into a hockey player since the day I got (back) here.”GAME OF THE WEEKSt. Louis Blues at Winnipeg Jets New York Islanders T-Shirts Authentic , Friday night. The Jets took over the Central Division lead with 73 points after a win over Arizona on Tuesday night, their sixth win in eight games. The Blues rebounded from a three-game slide in mid-January with six wins in nine games going into a home game Thursday night against Colorado. When the division foes played on back-to-back days in mid-December, the Blues and Jets each claimed a shutout win at home.LEADERS (through Tuesday’s games)Goals: Alexander Ovechkin (Washington), 32; Assists: Jakub Voracek (Philadelphia), 52; Points: Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay), 66; Wins: Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa Bay), 31; Goals-against average: Carter Hutton (St. Louis), 1.74; Hutton, .943.—