UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) – Long Island native Christopher Higgins scored two goals to help the Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Islanders 5-3 on Tuesday night in the first game for both teams since the Olympic break.

Higgins, from Smithtown, made it 3-0 with 42 seconds left in the second period, firing a wrist shot past goalie Garth Snow on a rush down the left wing, and beat U.S. Olympian Rick DiPietro with a high wrist shot at 8:34 of the third.

Higgins, the 22-year-old former Yale star selected 14th overall in the 2002 draft, has nine goals in his first full season with Montreal. He scored his first NHL goal Oct. 6 at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers.

Cristobal Huet, making his seventh straight start in goal for the Canadiens with Jose Theodore sidelined by a broken right heel, made 32 saves for the victory in Montreal’s first game on a six-game, 10-day trip.

Craig Rivet, rookie Alexander Perezhogin and Michael Ryder had power-play goals for Montreal, eighth in the Eastern Conference with 62 points. The Canadiens have earned 10 out of a possible 12 points in their last six games, going 4-0-2.

Miroslav Satan scored twice and Mark Parrish added a goal for the Islanders, eight points behind the Canadiens in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.

Parrish beat Huet off a rebound 2 minutes into the third period, and Satan added his team-leading 25th and 26th goals in a 2:54-span late in the period.

Perezhogin opened the scoring on a power play at 11:48 of the first period, beating Snow with a backhand shot from the slot. Rivet made it 2-0 with 4:05 left in the second, tipping Alexei Kovalev’s long shot past Snow.

Snow, making his second start in three games since returning from injuries to both knees, made only 10 saves in the first two periods before being replaced by DiPietro at the start of the third.

Ryder beat DiPietro on a two-man advantage at 6:11 of the third, the Montreal right wing’s team-leading 24th goal of the season.

Finnish Olympic star Saku Koivu, coming off a loss in the gold-medal game against Sweden on Sunday in Turin, had two assists for the Canadiens. Sheldon Souray had three assists, and Kovalev finished with two.

Notes: Three Montreal players captained Olympic teams – Koivu (Finland), Kovalev (Russia) and Mark Streit (Switzerland). … Canadiens defenseman Mike Komisarek also is from Long Island. He grew up in Islip Terrace.

AP-ES-02-28-06 2138EST