MONTREAL (Reuters) - Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens shutout their arch-rivals the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-0 in front of an emotional capacity crowd at the Bell Center on Saturday.
Prior to the game the teams and the crowd paid tribute to Pat Burns, the popular former coach of both clubs who passed away Friday after a long battle with cancer.
"He sent me a message before the season and it really touched me," said Price, who had never met Burns.
"I was surprised, it came out of the blue. He's a special person. He did a lot of great things for both these teams and he was definitely in our hearts tonight."
Price turned aside all 30 shots he faced for his fourth shutout of the season to tie for the league lead. Price has been in spectacular form recently, recording three shutouts in his last six games.
"I try to make myself big and sometimes the pucks just hit me and anything I left out, my guys cleared the puck," said Price. "Before the game, we thought it was going to be a tight one."
Jeff Halpern opened the scoring with a shorthanded tip-in from the blueline past Maple Leafs goalie Jonas Gustavsson in the second period.
Mike Cammalleri capitalized on a turnover by Leafs defenseman Mike Komisarek to seal victory in the third period.
Despite absorbing the loss, Gustavsson was nearly equal to Price as he stopped 37 shots, including all 17 he faced in the first period as the Canadiens dictated the play.
(Reporting by Mike Mouat in Windsor, Ontario. Editing by Patrick Johnston and Nick Mulvenney)
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