MONTREAL (Ticker) -- His teammates made things easy, so Jose Theodore decided to return the favor.
Theodore stopped 16 shots for his league-leading fourth shutout and also had a key assist as the Montreal Canadiens snapped a four-game home losing streak with a 3-0 blanking of the Buffalo Sabres.
Coming off Friday's 2-1 loss at Buffalo, Montreal won at the Bell Centre for the first time in more than two weeks. The Canadiens got physical and kept scoring chances to a minimum in one of their better defensive efforts of the season.
Theodore posted his third home shutout of the season and helped himself with a smart play that set up Chad Kilger's first tally and gave the Canadiens their first two-goal lead in eight games.
After corraling a loose puck deep in his zone, Theodore alertly spotted four Sabres heading to the bench for a line change and found defenseman Patrice Brisebois alone near the neutral zone. Brisebois moved in on 2-on-1 with Kilger, who fired a wrist shot into the right corner of the net with 2:17 left in the second period.
"I felt that when I passed the puck to Brisebois, that turned the game," Theodore said. "You got to be ready when you see a chance like that. The other guys changed their lines and they gave me a lot of ice space to shoot the puck."
"The second Montreal goal, I didn't like Theodore getting an assist," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "It's the fault of Jay McKee. Jay should know better when we're changing lines."
Brisebois also set up Jan Bulis' first-period goal and recorded his first multi-point game of the season.
Defenseman Sheldon Souray had the other goal for Montreal, which won for just the second time in its last eight games.
The Canadiens gave up a season low in shots for the second straight night. They gave up 17 in Friday's 2-1 loss at Buffalo but gained a physical edge from the opening faceoff in this one.
"There's time this year. We lost because we didn't work hard enough," Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. "But the effort has been there two nights in a row."
Montreal scored first for the eighth time in 15 games. With Bulis and Niklas Sundstrom battling for position in the crease, Brisebois threw a wrister from the point that deflected over goaltender Mika Noronen.
It was the first goal since April 2 for Bulis, who had just one assist in his first 14 games. Minutes earlier, he shot wide of the net.
Montreal had 37 shots on Noronen in the opener of the home-and-home series, then produced 26 more against the 24-year-old Finn. Before allowing Bulis' tally, he made a sprawling save on rookie Michael Ryder with just under 14 minutes remaining.
Theodore, who has allowed just two goals in his six wins, preserved the early lead with a pad save on Chris Drury. He also got help from his teammates, who hounded Miroslav Satan and Drury throughout.
Once Montreal got a two-goal lead, the physical play intensified. Darren Langdon tangled with Buffalo's Andrew Peters and Canadiens defenseman Craig Rivet brawled with Adam Mair just 19 seconds later.
Canadiens captain Saku Koivu logged over 16 1/2 minutes in his first home game of the season. He brought the crowd to its feet in the second period when he nailed Satan along the boards in the neutral zone. When Buffalo's Curtis Brown tried to retaliate, Koivu dropped his gloves, but the Sabres got the extra penalty.
"Tonight was a like a playoff game. It was so intense," Theodore said. "The fans loved it. It was so much fun to play in a game like that. I sat back in my net and I saw all that phyisical stuff."
"It was a great game," Brown said. "That's what happens when you battle with these guys for the second straight game. Obviously, we wanted to get two points tonight because we got the two points last night. I think we had a lot of quality shots on net, we just didn't score."
Montreal was 0-for-7 on the power play before Souray fired a blast from the slot past Noronen with six seconds left in the third period. It was his career-high and team-best sixth goal.
