Boston's Tanner Jeannot, right, jousts with Montreal's Josh Anderson during Tuesday night's game at TD Garden. (AP photo)

BOSTON (AP) — Zachary Bolduc scored to give the Canadiens the lead as Montreal scored four goals in a five-minute span to snap a third-period tie and run away from the Boston Bruins 6-2 on Tuesday night.

Sammy Blais, Ivan Demidov, Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky also scored for Montreal. Jacob Fowler stopped 26 shots for the Canadiens in a game that started with fisticuffs but ended with the Bruins going down meekly.

Marat Khusnutdinov and Alex Steeves scored in the first period to give Boston a 2-1 lead, but Demidov tied it two minutes into the second when he swept in to steal a bad pass from Nikita Zadorov to David Pastrnak and skated in on Jeremy Swayman for the goal.

The Bruins had a goal waved off in the final seconds of the second period and it was still 2-2 when Zadorov broke his stick while trying to clear the zone and left the puck for Bolduc.

The Canadiens winger passed the puck and then followed up to knock home a rebound to make it 3-2. Caufield scored on a power play 99 seconds later, and Suzuki scored with a two-man advantage.

Swayman stopped 23 shots for the Bruins.

Boston killed a four-minute power play when Steeves was sent off for a high-sticking double minor late in the second, and then appeared to take the lead with 5 seconds left in the period, but Elias Lindholm’s goal after a scramble in the crease was waved off for goaltender interference.

Rivalry renewed

Boston’s Tanner Jeannot and Montreal’s Josh Anderson dropped the gloves at the opening faceoff, renewing the long-running rivalry between the Original Six teams who are jockeying for position in the Eastern Conference standings.

Jeannot, who has 53 goals and 435 penalty minutes in his career, and Anderson (154 and 582) fought for about a minute while teammates on both benches banged their sticks against the boards in approval. The Bruins forward landed several blows before his Canadiens counterpart went to the ice, drawing a big roar and a chant of “U-S-A!” from the TD Garden crowd.

Midway through the first period, it happened again, with Boston’s Nikita Zadorov and Montreal’s Arber Xhekaj dropping their gloves off a faceoff in the Bruins’ end. In all, there were nine penalties for 30 minutes in the first, with Boston taking a 2-1 lead on a power-play goal with 18 seconds left in the period.

The Bruins had won eight of the last 10 matchups between the teams, including a 3-2 win in Montreal on Nov. 15.

That game also featured several scuffles, including a fight at the opening faceoff. But the bigger problem for the Bruins had nothing to do with the fisticuffs: star defenseman Charlie McAvoy was hit in the face by a slap shot, causing him to miss almost a month.

Up next

The Canadiens face Tampa Bay on Sunday.

The Bruins visit Buffalo on Saturday.