OTTAWA -- Somebody often scores when there's an Ottawa Senator in the penalty box.

On Saturday night, it was the Senators.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Curtis Lazar and Alex Chiasson scored shorthanded goals and Andrew Hammond made 30 saves as the Senators blanked the Montreal Canadiens 5-0 at Canadian Tire Centre.

Marc Methot and Mika Zibanejad had the other Ottawa goals, while Ben Scrivens made 39 saves in the Montreal net.

While leading the league with 15 shorthanded goals, the Senators also have the 29th ranked penalty kill, but on this night they also survived four Canadiens power plays.

"Our No. 1 thing is to make sure we kill the penalty off, and we've struggled this year," said Senators coach Dave Cameron. "Probably the upside of that is we have scored some shorthanded goals, but over the course of the year, our penalty kill hasn't been good enough.

"Any time you get one shorthanded goal, you look at it as a bonus. To get three is kind of the exception."

In fact, it was the first time the Canadiens have allowed three shorthanded goals in franchise history.

"To be honest, we had some chances and some good zone time, and then three errors," said Canadiens winger Max Pacioretty, who was minus-4 on the night. "I don't know what to say. You give them two breakaways and a 2-on-1 ... that can't happen and they made us pay for it."

The Canadiens' injury list is nine names long and it includes three regular defensemen. As a result they had four forwards on the ice for the first two Ottawa shorties.

"You've got to coach the personnel that you've got," said Montreal coach Michel Therrien. "We're missing a lot of defensemen, as we all know. We try with four forwards and one D. Obviously, that was not the right thing to do."

Hammond, who was making his first start since March 8, improved his record to 5-8-4 with the help of a 13-save first period.

The shutout was his first of the season and fourth of his career.

"I felt like I settled in as the game went on," said Hammond. "Obviously it's a high intensity game, whenever you're playing Montreal. Once I got a feel of the puck, I felt like I settled in pretty well."

Pageau, who leads the NHL with six shorthanded goals, also has six goal in 10 regular-season games against the Habs.

"I'm happy I contributed tonight," said Pageau. "But I think it all started with Hammond. He stopped all of their shots. I think we can be proud of ourselves tonight. We played the way we wanted."

It was an about-face by the Senators, who turned in a disappointing performance while losing 3-1 in Buffalo on Friday and how have a 3-9 record in the second of back-to-back games.

The Senators (34-31-8) remain seven points back of Detroit in the race for a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and now only have nine games remaining.

The Canadiens (33-33-6) are 11 back.

"From top to bottom, I thought we had a really good effort," said Hammond. "A bounce back from last night. The details of our game were really good tonight.

"Regardless of where we are in the standings right now, I think we're a high character group. When you take a game like last night, the way we did, you know you need to respond the next night. We really responded with a good one."

Despite giving up five goals, the best player on the ice for the Canadiens was Scrivens.

"I'm embarrassed the way we left him hanging," said Pacioretty. "The whole team should be."

The only soft goal Scrivens gave up was to Methot, who beat him from behind the net in the third period.

"He was going around the net, I pivoted to get an edge and he threw it back across the grain," said Scrivens, who had Methot's centering pass go in off his leg. "It was a tough bounce. I want to play it better, but I gave up a goal against Dallas at home where (Ales) Hemsky wrapped it so I kind of got burned. I was thinking maybe making sure that didn't happen again."

NOTES: Canadiens D Mark Barberio was ruled out for the game with concussion symptoms, causing more woe for the team's black and blue line, which is already missing regulars P.K. Subban, Jeff Petry and Tom Gilbert. In Barberio's absence, Canadiens D Alexei Emelin switched to the right side and was paired on the first blue line unit with Andrei Markov. ... Canadiens D Darren Dietz was recalled from St. John's IceCaps of the AHL to play his third NHL game. ... Senators LW Ryan Dzingel was scratched for the first time since being recalled Feb. 6. In the 20-game stretch, Dzingel had three goals and three assists. ... Taking Dzingel's roster spot was LW Matt Puempel, who was scratched seven times in the first nine games of his promotion from Binghamton. ... Canadiens C Alex Galchenyuk entered the night with 12 goals and two assists in his last 11 games. ... Senators RW Mark Stone had 25 points in his last 22 games before Saturday.