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Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price watches the puck as the Ottawa Senators’ Erik Condra (22) and the Canadiens’ Tom Gilbert (77) battle in front of the net during the first period NHL playoff action in Montreal Wednesday.

MONTREAL — Brian Flynn scored a tie-breaking goal late in the second period and the Montreal Canadiens held on to edge the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on Wednesday night in a wild opening game of their first-round playoff series.

Flynn also had two assists for the first three-point game of his career.

Tomas Plekanec and Torrey Mitchell scored 15 seconds apart in a frenetic second period that saw five players get goals in less than five minutes. Lars Eller scored short-handed as part of the barrage.

Mika Zibanejad and Kyle Turris got power-play goals in the middle period for the Senators. Milan Michalek was credited with the game’s first goal, which Montreal’s Andre Markov tipped into his own net 12 minutes in.

Islanders 4, Capitals 1

WASHINGTON — Brock Nelson, Josh Bailey, Ryan Strome and the New York Islanders showed that experience is not required for playoff success.

Each of those three young forwards scored in the postseason for the first time, with Nelson getting a pair of goals. Goalie Jaroslav Halak got plenty of help in keeping Alex Ovechkin off the scoring sheet, and the Islanders beat the Washington Capitals 4-1 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series Wednesday night.

Bailey (2008), Nelson (2010) and Strome (2011) were all first-round draft picks by New York, none is older than 25, and they entered Wednesday with these combined playoff numbers: seven games, zero goals, three assists.

That didn’t matter one bit on this night. Nor did Halak’s struggles down the stretch in the regular season. The goalie who stymied Ovechkin and the Capitals while playing for eighth-seeded Montreal in a 2010 first-round upset, was mostly superb. He made 24 saves, allowing only Marcus Johansson’s goal in the final minute of the first period.