Lapierre's Hat Trick Lifts Canadiens

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Maxim Lapierre scored the final three goals of the game, leading the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Monday night for their NHL-best 3,000th regular-season win.

Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec also scored for Montreal, which is 4-0-1 in its last five games. Carey Price stopped 25 shots for the Canadiens.

Michael Frolik and David Booth scored for the Panthers, who have lost three straight after tying a franchise record with seven wins in December.

Florida's Craig Anderson, making his first start in six games, gave up four goals on 20 shots. He was replaced by Tomas Vokoun after Lapierre's second goal at 2:40 of the third period.

The Canadiens' annual holiday visit to Florida was played in front of a largely pro-Montreal crowd. Chants of "Habs, go Habs!" erupted throughout the game. There also was a chant of "Carey, Carey!" after Price made a nice save in the third period.

Lapierre got a break when he broke the 2-all tie at 16:01 of the second. He tried to beat Anderson on a wraparound attempt with his forehand, but Anderson moved to his right to make the save. As Lapierre grabbed the rebound and skated behind the net to the other side, Anderson couldn't move to his left because his stick was being blocked by the post.

Lapierre then lifted a high backhand into the open net.

His second goal came after he took a drop pass from Guillaume Latendresse and fired a wrist shot from the top of the faceoff circle. The shot went through defenseman Nick Boynton and beat Anderson low to the glove side.

Lapierre completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal with 6.2 seconds left.

After Kovalev tied the game at 1 in the first period on a 5-on-3 power play, Plekanec gave Montreal the lead 1:30 into the second period with a short-handed goal.

Roman Hamrlik cleared the puck out of the Montreal zone by flipping a high backhand to center ice and Plekanec outskated Florida defenseman Bryan McCabe to the loose puck. Plekanec beat Anderson on a breakaway by lifting a shot over his right shoulder.

Booth tied the game at 6:49 on a Canadiens' misplay on their own end. Sergei Kostitsyn pushed the puck back toward the Montreal net to avoid a collision with teammate Ben Maxwell, but lost control of the puck. Booth pounced on it and fired a quick shot past Price.

Notes:@ Boston is second on the all-time victory list with 2,694. ... Florida dropped to 0-13-3 when trailing after two periods. ... Canadiens defenseman Josh Gorges played in his 200th NHL game. ... Florida D Jassen Cullimore returned after missing three games because of a hand injury. ... Florida C Kamil Kreps was placed on the injury list because of a shoulder injury sustained Saturday night at Tampa Bay.