The Canadiens played the Senators three times in eight days and won all three games, prevailing by a combined 7-2 margin in their final two regular-season matchups.
Montreal holds a three-point lead over Ottawa atop the Atlantic Division. The Senators have a game in hand, but three fewer regulation or overtime wins, which would be the tiebreaker at season's end.
The "loser point" doesn't have a huge fan club, but Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock was proud of his team for securing one by making it to overtime in a loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday.
"That's a huge point for us (tonight), an absolutely huge point," Babcock told reporters following the 2-1 defeat, according to TSN's Mark Masters.
"Every day you talk about how big the game is, but that's what we're going to do right to the end, obviously," Babcock added.
Auston Matthews ended his seven-game point drought when he opened the scoring in the first period, but John Hayden potted his first career marker in the second and Ryan Hartman tallied the winner for the Western Conference-leading Blackhawks with 17 seconds left in overtime.
Despite the loss, the Leafs restored their one-point lead over the New York Islanders for the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot. The Islanders earned a point of their own earlier Saturday in an overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Toronto has a game in hand on both New York and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who fell 5-3 to the Washington Capitals on Saturday night and now sit two points behind the Leafs.
The Washington Capitals haven't had to sweat much in their quest to secure the NHL's top seed, but the Columbus Blue Jackets are cranking up the thermostat down the stretch.
Cam Atkinson's overtime-winner Saturday gave the Blue Jackets their third straight victory and sixth win in their last seven games. It also drew them even with the Capitals for top spot in the Metropolitan Division, the Eastern Conference, and the league as a whole, albeit with an asterisk.
#CBJ are tied with Capitals in points (98) and regulation/overtime wins (44), but #Caps technically in first place because of head-to-head.
Both teams have 12 games remaining on their regular-season schedules, and both will play five at home and seven on the road, but the Capitals have an easier road to the preliminary hardware.
Washington will close out the regular season with a pair of home-road back-to-backs, but they play the lowly Arizona Coyotes twice and the league-worst Colorado Avalanche once beforehand.
The Blue Jackets close out a back-to-back Sunday, then have to play three more before the postseason begins, so six of their final 11 games will be parts of back-to-back clusters.
Columbus will face Washington twice and battle the Chicago Blackhawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins on the road before season's end, while the Capitals only have two major tests the rest of the way with a road game against the Minnesota Wild and a home date with the New York Rangers.
Still, the two division rivals are headed in opposite directions at the moment. While the Blue Jackets have reeled off seven wins in their last 10 games, the Capitals have lost five of their last six.
The chase for the league's No. 1 spot could be decided April 2, when the Capitals host the Blue Jackets in their final pre-playoff meeting. However, considering the way both clubs have been playing, it might not be decided until the final day of the regular season.
Whether it's a case of hitting the "rookie wall," or simply a standard drought that all players go through in an 82-game season, the rookie phenom's most intimidating teammate says he isn't concerned.
“Auston has been - I don’t want to say carrying us all year - but he’s scored a lot of goals for this team,” Matt Martin told The Toronto Star's Kevin McGran. “He’s got 30-plus on the season, he’s been a catalyst offensively all year."
Despite the seven-game slide, Matthews still ranks eighth in the NHL and second among all rookies in goals (31).
The 19-year-old is tied with teammate Mitch Marner for second in points (55) among those in the rookie class. He leads the Leafs in goals and is also tied with Marner for the club lead in points.
Toronto won four of the seven games in which Matthews failed to register a point, and vaulted back into the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot with a shutout win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night.
Martin potted a rare goal in the victory, his fifth of the season and first since Jan. 21.
“We’re getting offensive production from other guys when (Matthews isn't) scoring," Martin said. "He’s still playing well. The puck’s not going for him. We have to find ways to win. I’m confident he’ll get back on track.”
Anderson only needed to make 14 saves against the league-worst Avalanche.
The 35-year-old earned the milestone win in his 283rd game with the Senators, while Lalime required the same number of games to reach 146.
Anderson's achievement comes with a couple of caveats. Firstly, he's also four losses behind Lalime for the most defeats in franchise history, and secondly, he's played the majority of his career in the shootout era that's inflated win totals league wide.
Still, it's a testament to Anderson's longevity and his perseverance this season in particular, in which he's taken multiple leaves of absence to attend to his wife, Nicholle, who was diagnosed with cancer last fall.
Anderson now has 234 career victories in 496 games played over 14 seasons with the Senators, Avalanche, Florida Panthers, and Chicago Blackhawks.
Terry ranks fifth in the AHL with 21 goals and sits tied for second with 50 points in 38 games for the St. John's IceCaps. His 1.32 points per game mark is tops among AHLers with at least 24 games played this season.
The 27-year-old winger is playing 2016-17 on a two-way deal, having appeared in 14 NHL contests with the Canadiens earlier in the campaign.
Terry spent nine seasons in the Carolina Hurricanes' organization after they made him a fifth-round pick in 2007.
Other factors contributing to a slow deadline included the faux league-wide parity created largely by the "loser point" and the looming expansion draft, which will force teams to make tough decisions about which players to protect from being selected by the Vegas Golden Knights.
Peter Chiarelli's inactivity on the goaltending front before Wednesday's trade deadline was surprising to some, but the Edmonton Oilers general manager says he's comfortable with the netminders on the roster.
"We decided we're going to go with the goalies we have," Chiarelli told reporters after the 3 p.m. ET deadline passed. "We see improvement and we're confident in (backup Laurent Brossoit)."
Cam Talbot has been reliable as the Oilers' starter, going 32-18-7 with a 2.38 GAA and .920 save percentage, but he's played 57 of Edmonton's 64 games, already one more appearance than he made in all of last season.
Brossoit - a sixth-round pick of the Calgary Flames in 2011 - has allowed eight goals in four NHL games this campaign.
"We felt, after making the move yesterday for Desharnais, we weren't going to be overly active," Chiarelli said Wednesday, adding that he's confident in the group as currently assembled.
The Oilers occupy second place in the Pacific Division, five points behind the San Jose Sharks - who own two games in hand - and two points up on the Anaheim Ducks, who have one game in hand on Edmonton.
Corrado was never able to carve out consistent playing time with the Leafs, who waived him in early February. He appeared in only two NHL games this season after making 39 appearances with Toronto in 2015-16.
Fehr is on the books for $2 million this season and another $2 million in 2017-18, while Oleksy is a pending unrestricted free agent with a cap hit of $575,000.