In Montreal, Nick Suzuki‘s third period power-play goal helped the Canadiens down the Calgary Flames, 4-2 on Thursday night.
The loss was the first for the Flames in their last six road games.
“It was an intense game, physical enough, and our players responded,” Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme said. “From beginning to end, I thought we were solid for 60 minutes.”
Jake Allen made 24 saves in the Habs win.
Mikael Backlund and Andrew Mangiapane were the Calgary strikers.
“We’re a team that didn’t make the (Stanley Cup Playoffs) last year,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. “We’re trying to stay in the race, that’s the key. There’s not enough difference in the League, I’ll tell you that right now, that every game is a tough game.
“We’re not a team that’s going to score a lot so you’re going to have to do a lot of grinding and banging away, and I think we did more of that tonight than we probably did the last couple of games.”
Brendan Gallagher and Ben Chiarot scored for the Canadiens as both traded goals before the third period.
“He’s (Chiarot) been around the blue paint a lot on the offensive side,” Suzuki said. “But he’s picking his points and doing a great job crashing the net, seeing an opportunity and capitalizing.”
Jake Evans added an empty-net goal with six seconds left for the 4-2 final.
“He’s (Evans) been playing great,” Suzuki said. “You can see when he’s confident he’s making plays, skating really well, great on the PK. We definitely need him to play great and he’s been stepping up in big moments, and good to get rewarded with the goal at the end.”
Jacob Markstrom made 24 saves in the Flames loss.
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