“(Fowler) was tremendous,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “But ideally, I would like to have to defend less. We were good when we had to do it.”
Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle scored, and Cole Caufield had two assists for the Canadiens (6-3-2), who have points in four straight (3-0-1).
“I think last year I got a good taste of it and I was really fortunate for this group to welcome me in,” Fowler said of the 17 games he played last season. “I just had a lot of belief in this group that if I can just give our team a chance, we have a lot of skill in this team and we can put a few goals in the net.”
Isak Rosen scored and Stuart Skinner made 19 saves for the Jets (4-4-3), who’ve lost five straight (0-3-2).
“I thought we started a little bit slow,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “Obviously, third period was our best period. Their goaltender was real good, some big stops. … The biggest thing for me, we didn’t have enough traffic on Fowler. We didn’t make it a little bit more difficult for him to find pucks and this is something that we’ve got to make sure we do a better job at.”
After a scoreless first period, Hutson made it 1-0 Canadiens at 7:19 of the second, when Noah Dobson found him backdoor with a cross-slot pass and he put it behind Skinner.
“I think it’s still a work in progress,” Hutson said. “We’re just trying to do hard actions, play the same way, play prideful hockey. And I feel like we’re doing a better job of it, limiting our risk and still learning how to play with the lead, but we’re doing a pretty good job of putting ourselves in these situations.”