After a busy opening period in Calgary, the game settled down to a 2-2 tussle back and forth until Sean Monahan scored for the Flames en for a 3-2 lead over the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Friday night.
“It’s a big one. You’ve got to take this day by day,” Monahan said. “We’ve got another one tomorrow. We’ve got to be ready for it. They’re going to come out with a better game, so we’ve got to up our level too.”
Jacob Markstrom made 17 saves in the win.
Dillon Dube scored for the Flames to give them a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Montreal replied with two goals from Tyler Toffoli and Joel Armia to take a 2-1 lead.
“We knew it was a big game tonight,” the Canadiens’ Joel Edmundson said. “Obviously they’re chasing us, but we’re looking at the past couple games and the next two against them as a best-of-5. They’re up 2-1 right now, but we’ve got two more games in the next three nights. We’ve got to win the next two. Tonight we just didn’t get to our game enough.”
Before the opening frame ended, Calgary’s Andrew Mangiapane scored to even the game at 2-2.
“I think we have to look at it as just take it as a game at a time,” Mangiapane said. “No sense in looking ahead. We’ll play them when it happens. Obviously everyone knows what situation we’re in, so we’ve got to make up ground and we’re trying to catch these guys and every game’s key.”
It was a four-point with the Flames crawling to within six points of the Habs for the final spot in the North Division.
Elias Lindholm added an empty-net goal to secure the win for Calgary.
Jake Allen made 26 saves in the loss.
“I’m sure there’s some frustration from everyone, but hey, the game’s over,” Allen said. “You can think about it for a few minutes but get that out of your head. We go right back at it tomorrow. We have another chance to redeem ourselves here. We’re very fortunate. We’ve got three games here in four days. We’ll play our best hockey and get on a roll here heading down the stretch. That’s the way I look at it. The game’s over. We lost. It’s time to move on.”
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