MONTREAL (AP) – The Boston Bruins had to work a lot harder than they expected to finish off the Montreal Canadiens.

Bruins defenseman Brad Stuart scored his second goal of the third period with 1:42 remaining and Boston held off Montreal 6-5 on Monday night.

Stuart scored midway through the period to give the Bruins – who blew a 4-1 lead in the second – a 5-4 advantage before Montreal’s Sheldon Souray tied it moments later with his team-leading 10th goal on a power play.

“Coming in after the second, we were all pretty upset with ourselves, and it was a good thing that we had a little time to regroup,” Stuart said. “We talked about things that we stopped doing that allowed them to come back and we tried to get back to doing those things.”

Stuart restored the Bruins’ lead at 18:18 with his fourth of the season.

“You shoot the puck and good things happen,” he said.

Marc Savard had three assists for Boston, which has won four of five. Glenn Murray, Marco Sturm, Shean Donovan and Wayne Primeau also scored for the Bruins, who allowed three straight goals in the second after they chased Canadiens starter Cristobal Huet.

“These are the games that you’ve got to win,” Savard said. “It was ugly.”

Montreal rookie Guillaume Latendresse opened the scoring midway through the first, and the Canadiens got goals in the second from Michael Ryder, Mike Johnson and Alexander Perezhogin to tie it at 4 late in the middle period.

“We had some breaks go against us,” Souray said. “It wasn’t that we played bad, we played really well, and you get a couple of bounces go against you … I thought the Murray goal from behind the net took a certain amount of momentum from us, and then it kind of went from there. We just couldn’t grab a hold of the game.”

Boston’s Tim Thomas stopped 34 shots, improving to 9-3 in his last 12 starts, all consecutive.

“Timmy played excellent for us,” Savard said. “He let in five, but he was the story, especially early on. He could have got blown out.”

David Aebischer stopped 12 shots after replacing Huet following Primeau’s short-handed goal 3:12 into the second. Huet, who made his fourth straight start, also had 12 saves.

Souray scored on a slap shot from the point during a power play 12:47 into the third to tie it at 5, just moments after Boston had regained a 5-4 lead at 10:35 when Stuart got credit for his third of the season after his point shot went in off Souray’s right skate.

Montreal has lost three of five, but hasn’t dropped consecutive games this season.

After Latendress beat Thomas on a slap shot from the left faceoff circle to open the scoring midway through the first, Murray and Sturm scored 1:37 apart late in the opening period to put Boston up 2-1.

Donovan and Primeau scored 1:24 apart early in the second as the Bruins chased Huet with a 4-1 lead.

B>Notes:P> It was the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Canadiens on Dec. 4, 1909 – eight years before the birth of the NHL. Bruins greats Milt Schmidt, Johnny Bucyk, Carol Vadnais, Gerry Cheevers, Wayne Cashman, Rick Middleton and Raymond Bourque were on hand for a pregame ceremony celebrating the history of the Boston-Montreal rivalry. Elmer Lach, Emile “Butch” Bouchard, Pierre Bouchard, Yvon Lambert, Chris Nilan, Guy Lafleur and Jean Beliveau represented Montreal. … Canadiens D Craig Rivet played despite leaving late in the second period of Saturday’s 4-3 shootout win over Toronto after he was hit on the right wrist by a shot.

AP