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BOX SCORE
MONTREAL (AP) -- Larry Murphy's latest milestone nearly caught
him by surprise.
Murphy's two assists made him the third NHL defenseman to top
1,200 career points and Vyacheslav Kozlov scored twice as the
Detroit Red Wings beat the Canadiens 4-2 on Wednesday night.
"This one crept up on me," Murphy said. "I didn't realize it
until somebody said it to me about three or four days ago. I didn't
really think about it."
Murphy assisted on Doug Brown's third goal of the season and
Kozlov's second goal of the game -- both in the second period -- to
increase his point total to 1,201. Boston's Paul Coffey and
Colorado's Ray Bourque are the only other defensemen among the 30
NHL players to reach that number.
"I take great pride in it, obviously, but it's something that
just kind of comes around when you hang in there long enough,"
Murphy said. "It's one of those things you cherish after you're
done but hopefully I've got a few more left in me, so I'm not going
to really dwell too much on it."
Sergei Fedorov, who also drew an assist on Brown's goal, had
three assists to raise his team-leading points total to 15. Fedorov
set up Kozlov's first goal of the game and Martin Lapointe's eighth
goal on the power play 8:29 into the second for his fifth
multipoint game of the season.
Detroit, which lost 6-2 at Washington on Tuesday, won for the
fifth time in its last six games to raise its record to 8-4-0-1.
The Red Wings sent 38 shots at Canadiens goalie Jose Theodore.
"It was a great team effort," Fedorov said. "We were able to
bounce back from the game we played in Washington and that's what
it's all about. We just want to work hard and we came out strong."
Montreal defenseman Patrice Brisebois scored his fourth goal
14:50 into the opening period to tie the game at 1-1, with a
slapshot that Red Wings goalie Manny Legace couldn't hold.
Dainius Zubrus scored his seventh goal on a power play at 9:53
of the second period to draw the Canadiens within 3-2.
Montreal (4-6-2-0) lost its third straight game and is winless
in its last four.
"Tonight, we only had about 10 guys going," Canadiens
defenseman Eric Weinrich said. "That's not going to win it for
us."
Kozlov backhanded a shot past Theodore off a faceoff in the
Montreal zone 6:43 into the first to open the scoring.
After Brisebois tied it at 1-1, Murphy and Fedorov combined to
send Brown in on the right wing, where he beat Theodore with a shot
over his right shoulder at 6:51 of the second.
Lapointe made it 3-1 less than 2 minutes later when his shot got
under Theodore's right arm for his third power play goal this
season.
Legace stopped 20 shots, including a good chance by Martin
Rucinsky, who broke in alone four minutes into the third.
"If Rucinsky scored there, we would have been back in the
game," Brisebois said. "Instead of scoring, we gave them a
5-on-3, when what we had to do there was go on offense."
Game notes
Murphy has played 1,570 games in 21 seasons, second to
Gordie Howe's record of 1,767 regular season games. ... Scotty
Bowman coached his 1,990th regular season game; no NHL coach has
ever reached 2,000. ... The Red Wings had a season-high 45 shots
against Nashville in a 2-1 overtime loss on Oct. 19. ... Canadiens
defenseman Karl Dykhuis made his first start of the season after
recovering from abdominal surgery in June.
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ALSO SEE
NHL Scoreboard
Detroit Clubhouse
Montreal Clubhouse
RECAPS
NY Rangers 6
Tampa Bay 1
NY Islanders 3
Florida 0
Detroit 4
Montreal 2
Philadelphia 1
New Jersey 1
Dallas 4
Columbus 0
Edmonton 3
Calgary 2
Vancouver 4
Colorado 3
Phoenix 1
Anaheim 1
San Jose 3
Pittsburgh 2
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Martin Lapointe scores the power-play goal.
avi: 637 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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