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  Thursday, Dec. 9 7:30pm ET
Canadiens send Isles to 5th straight home loss
 
  RECAP | BOX SCORE

UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) -- Home ice has become a huge disadvantage for the New York Islanders.

The Islanders lost their fifth straight home game Thursday night as Montreal won 4-2. New York is 2-9-1 at the Nassau Coliseum this season.

"We're all frustrated, no doubt about it," Islanders forward Claude Lapointe said. "Me myself, I'm the first to be frustrated."

New York has only six wins this season, two coming against the Canadiens. But it was Montreal who came out skating hard, and Martin Rucinsky scored the first of his two goals at 7:55 when he beat goalie Felix Potvin on a power play with a 40-foot slap shot.

"Benny (Benoit Brunet) gave me a good pass and I just let it go," Rucinsky said. "I think it got Potvin's glove."

Brunet, playing in his second game since missing the first 27 of the season with a back injury, flipped a rebound in at 11:24 to make it 2-0.

"Certainly the first 10 minutes of the game, we were sleepwalking," Butch Goring said. "There was a lot of effort going in a lot of different directions."

New York scored with 18.4 seconds left in the period when Isbister shoveled in a pass from Tim Connolly, but Montreal answered 2:37 into the second period when Zholtok beat Potvin with a wrist shot to the glove side.

"The game was one-sided in our favor for just about the entire first period," Montreal coach Alain Vigneault said. "There was no reason to give up a goal so late."

Montreal got it back early in the second period during a power play when Sergei Zholtok beat Potvin to the glove side with a quick wrist shot at 2:37.

Vladimir Orszagh got his first of the season for New York at 10:06 when he followed up Josh Green's shot and put the rebound over goalie Jeff Hackett.

The Islanders had a good opportunities to tie the game early in the third period, but Mariusz Czerkawski put a breakaway attempt into Hackett's pads at 2:25.

"I tried to go five-hole," Czerkawski said. "I saw an opening, and it was still there when I shot. I think he got his stick on it. I should have done something different, but it's real easy to think about that after it happens."

Rucinsky gave the Canadiens a 4-2 lead with a one-timer at 12:21.
 


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