Montreal ? Donald Audette struggled for three periods to get a shot on goal and failed. It finally came less than three minutes into overtime and rocked the Molson Centre.

Audette scored his team-leading fifth goal of the playoffs just 2:26 into the first overtime Tuesday night, giving the Montreal Canadiens a 2-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes.

The winning goal came off a faceoff in the Carolina zone, and Hurricanes ace Rod Brind’Amour was victimized on the draw. Yanic Perreault somehow got the puck to Audette, who beat goalie Kevin Weekes with a quick shot from the low slot.

“I don’t think he was ready for that one,” Audette said of Weekes, who finished with 18 saves. “I had a step on the defenseman and just took one step and it was enough. The puck stayed up in the air and I stepped into it. I think I beat him with the quickness of the shot.”

Brind’Amour, who won 16 of 22 faceoffs in the game, was as stunned as anybody.

“It happens,” he said in a silent dressing room. “It went right up in the air behind me, and for a second everyone froze. It landed nice for him, and he got a good shot off. Those little things are frustrating. You do that 1,000 times and it wouldn’t happen like that.”

The Canadiens got another strong performance in goal from Jose Theodore, who made 33 saves, and gained a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, which resumes here Thursday night. It was Carolina’s first overtime loss after two wins against New Jersey in the first round.

“You gear yourself up for a seven-game series, and we expect it to be a hard-fought battle,” Carolina captain Ron Francis said. “We still feel capable of winning. We had a lot of chances. We just have to find a way to bury one.”

Saku Koivu, who leads Montreal in scoring with 10 points, got his fourth goal of the playoffs at 9:03 of the second period to break a tense, scoreless duel between Theodore and Weekes.

Andreas Dackell set up the goal, intercepting a pass by Carolina defenseman Sean Hill just outside the Hurricanes’ zone. Dackell closed in on Weekes from the right and zipped a perfect goalmouth feed to the diminutive Canadiens captain, who deflected it past Weekes before he could move his pads.

The Hurricanes, held to just one goal in Game 2 on a power play with a two-man advantage wanted to create traffic in front of Theodore to break the concentration that produced 81 saves on 84 shots in the first two games.

There wasn’t much traffic, but early in the third period the Hurricanes finally spoiled Theodore’s bid for his first playoff shutout as they turned up the pressure.

After rookie Erik Cole split the Montreal defense but failed to get off much of a shot, defenseman Bret Hedican trapped the puck at the left point. He fired a shot through a screen, and Bates Battaglia deflected it past Theodore at 3:24 for his second goal of the postseason.

Theodore, who made 15 saves in the period, forced the overtime with brilliant pad saves on hard drives by Glen Wesley and Hill in the final minute of regulation.

“We’re up 2-1, but I think any of the games could have gone either way,” Koivu said. “We know what they can do. They’re a strong team, so we can’t be overconfident.”

Prior to playoff games at the Molson Centre this year, the Canadiens are using their glorious past for inspiration. Black-and-white photos of heroes of the team’s 24 Stanley Cup-winning teams Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau, Guy Lafleur and Toe Blake head the pantheon are superimposed on the ice.