RALEIGH, N.C. — The Montreal Canadiens have two days off for Christmas and nobody will appreciate it more than goaltender Jaroslav Halak.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Halak, who stopped 46 shots in the Canadiens’ 5-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night. “I might be seeing pucks in my dreams, but it was another game we had to win.”

Halak has seen 137 shots over the past three games, but has posted three wins to leave the Canadiens in the thick of the battle for one of the eight playoff spots in the NHL’s Eastern Conference.

The New York Rangers, the Canadiens and the Florida Panthers have 39 points each, but the Rangers have two games in hand on Montreal and Florida.

It was only two weeks that Halak was requesting a trade. On the basis on his recent play, the Canadiens can’t afford to send him packing.

Halak said he wasn’t concerned about the number of shots coming his way.

“I like it,” he said after the Canadiens were outshot, 47-25. “It gets you in the game early and you just keep rolling. Again tonight, we give up more shots than we had but we were able top score big goals on the power play.”

The Canadiens scored three goals on five power-play opportunities with centre Glen Metropolit scoring twice. He has scored five of his 10 goals this season with the extra man.

“I’ve played the power play before and the stats have been there,” he said. “It’s a matter of getting the opportunities. It’s nice to get rewarded and I hope I can keep it going when we get back.”

Metropolit feels the Canadiens — who’ve won three straight games since a five-game skid — are headed in the right direction.

“We have (star defenceman Andrei) Markov back, (forward Benoit Pouliot, acquired from Minnesota for Guillaume Latendresse) looked pretty good in his first game and we’re still missing some guys,” said Metropolit. “We’re still missing Brian Gionta and Roman Hamrlik (to injuries), so how knows how good we can be when they get back.”

Canadiens centre Tomas Plekanec continued to climb up the list of top scorers in the NHL with three assists. He has nine points in the past three games and has 43 for the season.

He said a lot of the credit for his scoring spree should go to linemates Andrei Kostitsyn and Michael Cammalleri.

“The two guys I’m playing with are really good in the open ice and they make it easy for me,” said Plekanec.

Plekanec said the Canadiens got the good start they needed against a fragile Carolina team.

“You can see they don’t have the confidence,’ said Plekanec. “They have some really good players but they’re having a tough year and they’re not getting the bounces. We got the bounces tonight.”

Canadiens centre Scott Gomez, who has struggled this season, also collected three assists on his 30th birthday and he also has kind words for his linemates, — Sergei Kostitsyn and Pouliot.

“Benny’s trying to create some chances and that’s a big asset,” said Gomez. “It was good to see Sergei getting that goal. He needed that and now he has something to build on.”

If there was one disconcerting note, it was the disparity in shots. The Canadiens went more than 16 minutes without a shot in the third period.

“I guess we’ll hear about that Saturday morning,” said Metropolit.

Montreal Gazette