Marchand suffers concussion, will be out indefinitely

Lars Eller scored twice, Alex Galchenyuk collected three assists and Carey Price turned in another solid effort to lead the Canadiens to a 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday night at the TD Garden.

– The Montreal Canadiens continued their dominance of the rival Boston Bruins on Saturday night. Boston went 2-1-1 against the Lightning a year ago, and will look to avoid beginning the year 0-3-0.

The B’s – during their most uninspiring season in almost a decade – dropped all four matchups with the Canadiens in 2014-15, during a regular season that followed a 2014 second-round bow-out against the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge.

“All our preseason games, I thought, were pretty intense”, Miller said. “We definitely relied on him a little bit too much tonight, but that’s what we’re used to”.

Alexander Semin, the right winger on the line, assisted on both Eller goals and center Tomas Plekanec scored an empty-net goal to make it 4-1.

“I liked the way we stuck up for each other, ” Montreal coach Michel Therrien said.

Boston goalie Tuukka Rask stopped 37 shots and kept the Bruins from being routed.

Finally, with 14:26 gone in the middle frame, the Bruins answered with Beleskey’s first of the season.

The Bruins have opened 0-2 for the first time since 2005-06. The Bruins clearly missed their supersized defenseman, especially against Montreal’s top line of Eller, Semin and Galchenyuk.

“I would say questionable”, Julien said of Chara.

“That goal gets disallowed and then the next shift you get scored on again”. Price certainly seems to play that way every time out against the Bruins, logging a 4-0-0 mark against them last season and permitting only two goals in the last three meetings. The Bruins leave for Colorado on Tuesday to start a two-game road swing against the Avalanche and Coyotes.

The Bs scoring leader in two of the last three seasons caught an inadvertent elbow from the Montreal Canadiens’ forward, and Bruin fan non-favorite, Dale Weise in Saturday’s loss. He needed help retreating down the tunnel toward the dressing room.

Ryan Spooner was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for this hit. Boston would kill this penalty and two more during the period. In the end, the board stayed at 3-1 with the Habs outshooting the Bruins 18-7.

Matt Beleskey’s goal late in the second period was the only offence for Boston until Patrice Bergeron scored with 31 seconds to play. Given the number of players new to the lineup, combined with the absence of veteran defensemen Zdeno Chara (upper body injury) and Dennis Seidenberg (back surgery), the Bruins anticipated a few disorganization and preached patience to start the season.