Flames win in Sutter debut

In Calgary, Darryl Sutter won his debut with the Flames on Thursday night, 2-1, over the Montreal Canadiens.

Jacob Markstrom made 17 saves for the win as the Flames had to hold off a late charge from the Habs.

“Every win … there’s lots of them,” Sutter said. “They’re all the same. You take it and get ready for the next one.”

Corey Perry scored the lone Canadiens goal.

Montreal dropped to 12-7-7.

“Sometimes it’s just not there,” the Canadiens’ Jonathan Drouin said. “When it’s not there as a team, we have to find those ways to do the little things right and make sure we’re on the same page. It’s not going to be a pretty night. We’re going to get nights like that when it’s not flowing the way it should be, but we’ll get better at that where we’ve got to figure out our game when we’re not having it.”

Josh Leivo potted both goals for Calgary.

“It feels great,” Leivo said. “I don’t think I get those goals without those linemates and the way we played. They worked hard, created some turnovers, and I was just standing in the right spot. When you’re ready for it, sometimes the puck goes in. I’ve got to give credit to my linemates.”

Both goals came in the middle frame.

“It’s very obvious how he wants us to play,” Calgary’s Derek Ryan (two assists) said. “He wants a fast-paced game, structured, and I think that’s what you saw for just about a full 60 minutes. I thought everybody was confident and 100 percent in what we needed to do on the ice in every shift, and no one was hesitating or questioning anything. It was a lot of fun to play that way.”

The Flames improved to 12-12-3.

“You want to win hockey games, (and) in this division you need four good lines, and three good (defense) pairs, and your goaltender to make some big saves, or good saves,” Sutter said. “I think that we’re going to have to work at that because we’ll play a much better team on Saturday night than we played tonight.”

Jake Allen made 27 saves in the loss.

“Points are crucial,” Allen said. “They came out and played a heavy, hard game. We knew they were going to do that with the new coaching change. We just couldn’t find our groove tonight. I think we’ll get back to the drawing board tomorrow. I think we’ve played some really good hockey as of late and we’ll get to it again Saturday.”