ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) _ Trevor Linden scored the go-ahead goal with 12:09 remaining and Martin Rucinsky connected on a power play as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 2-1 Monday night.

Jose Theodore made 30 saves for the Canadiens, who have won four of their last six games following a nine-game winless streak.

Ted Donato scored for the Mighty Ducks, who were held to fewer than three goals for the 12th time this season despite the return of Teemu Selanne from a strained groin that put him out for three games.

The Canadiens played their first game since the injury to their leading goal-scorer, Brian Savage, who sustained a fractured vertebra in his back on Saturday night.

Savage, 28, was walking around with a neck brace on Monday, but was still in severe pain. The Canadiens expect to fly him back to Montreal in two or three days with athletic trainer Gaetan Lefebvre.

The Canadiens regained their lead when Shayne Corson shrugged off a check by Pavel Trnka to the right of the net and fed the puck in front to Linden, who snapped his sixth goal through the legs of defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky and goaltender Guy Hebert.

The Canadiens, who ended their long winless streak with a 2-1 victory over the Ducks at the Molson Centre on Nov. 11, opened the scoring during a two-man advantage with 15 seconds left in the first period.

Eric Weinrich threw the puck from the left point to the base of the right circle, where Rucinsky beat Hebert over the shoulder. Rucinsky's eighth goal came after Pavel Trnka went off for holding Scott Thornton and Pascal Trepanier was penalized for boarding Shayne Corson 17 seconds later.

Just 14 seconds after killing off a hooking penalty to Tony Hrkac, the Ducks tied it at 8:26 of the second period when the Canadiens got caught deep in the Anaheim zone. Donato took off with Hrkac on a two-on-one against defenseman Karl Dykhuis, who was forced to the outside by Hrkac as Donato skated in untouched. He faked Theodore to his right before beating him to the glove side.

With 1:10 to go in the second, Theodore made his most acrobatic save of the game when he came out to challenge Paul Kariya on a breakaway, refused to go for Kariya's fake and robbed him with a glove save while falling backward.

The Canadiens attracted only 12,496 to Anaheim Arena _ the Ducks' smallest crowd in their 11 home games this season _ after selling out Staples Center about 35 miles up the freeway in downtown Los Angeles.