Patric Hornqvist scored his second goal of the night to cap a three-point game and break a deadlock as the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Montreal Canadiens 5-3 on Thursday night.

With the score tied 3-3, Hornqvist netted the winner with 7:36 remaining in the third period at Bell Centre. Carl Hagelin used his blazing speed to create a rush that ended with Hornqvist redirecting the puck into the cage for his fourth goal in the past four games. It was also Hornqvist's 400th career point.

The Penguins are now tied with the Washington Capitals for top spot in the Metropolitan Division, although the Capitals have two games in hand.

Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry stopped 17 shots.

Early goals by Artturi Lehkonen and Paul Byron staked Montreal to a 2-0 lead.

While the Canadiens were buzzing, Lehkonen zipped across the crease in time to redirect Jeff Petry's point shot past Jarry to open the scoring at 3:15.

Byron doubled the lead at the 6:31 mark by burying a power-play goal during a wild scramble. After Brendan Gallagher got off one shot, Byron pounced on the rebound.

That lead was gone before the first intermission. Phil Kessel put the Penguins on the board at 10:05 when he converted a nifty backhanded cross-crease pass from Bryan Rust.

Then Hornqvist evened the scoring with a lucky goal at 14:33. After eluding Petry's soft checking attempt, Hornqvist tried to pass on the ensuing rush, but the puck went off Byron's stick and past goalie Antti Niemi to tie the game 2-2.

The back-and-forth didn't end there. Evgeni Malkin's 40th goal of the season gave Pittsburgh the lead at 10:30 of the second period. Malkin unloaded a one-timer from outside the right faceoff dot for the power-play tally.

Nicolas Deslauriers pulled the hosts even less than three minutes later. Deslauriers was alone in the slot when Daniel Carr fed him the puck, and he converted a one-timer to make it a 3-3 game.

After Hornqvist's go-ahead goal, Rust rounded out the scoring with an empty-netter with 1:53 left.

Malkin's two points give him 89 on the season, which leaves him two back of Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov for the league lead.

Niemi made 34 saves for the Canadiens, who have one win in their past seven games.

--Field Level Media