Nathan Horton scored at 9:03 of the second overtime to lift the Boston Bruins to a 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night and a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Horton scored his second goal of the playoffs after Andrew Ference fired a slapshot on Carey Price but the Canadiens goaltender gave up the rebound and Horton made no mistake putting it into the net.
It was the second straight overtime win for the Bruins and the first time a team has won at home in the series.
Boston has now won three in a row and will look to finish the series in Game 6 on Tuesday in Montreal.
Brad Marchand also scored for Boston and Tim Thomas stopped 44 shots.
Jeff Halpern tied the game in the third for Montreal and Price finished with 49 saves.
After two scoreless periods, Marchand scored 4:33 into the third period but Halpern tied the game at 13:56 as Lars Eller fed him the puck from behind the net and Halpern fired over Thomas’ right shoulder.
It was Halpern’s first goal of the playoffs after missing the first three games with a lower-body injury.
Brent Sopel hauled down Marchand with less than four minutes in the first overtime period but Boston’s dreadful power play was once again ineffective. The Bruins power play was 0-for-3 on the night and is 0-for-15 in the series.
Montreal’s best chance to win it in the second overtime came at 5:35 when Travis Moen and Brian Gionta went in on a 2-on-1 but Gionta couldn’t bury Moen’s pass and Thomas slid just in time to stifle the Montreal captain.
Gionta has two goals in the series but both of them came in Game 1.
Price nearly handed the game to the Bruins in the first overtime. At the 8:08 mark, he fumbled the puck during a clearing attempt and fell backwards on it as his mask came off with Marchand nearby and looking for his second of the game.
Although both goalies came up big, the save of the game went to Michael Ryder. The overtime hero of Game 4 stopped Tomas Plekanec from scoring into an almost empty net about eight minutes into the game.
Boston is 0-26 when they’ve started with an 0-2 series deficit but Montreal has lost the last two series where they’ve won the first pair: in 1996 against the New York Rangers and 2006 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
