Late strike sends Montreal over Avs, 4-3 Allen makes 32 saves in the win

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In Montreal, the Canadiens’ Joel Armia scored with just over four minutes left in regulation on Monday to snap a 3-3 tie with the visiting Colorado Avalanche, and send the Habs to 4-3 win.

“I think he’s having fun,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “He’s smiling and he’s playing some really good hockey right now, and what we want for ‘Army’ is just that consistency, but we’re getting that right now and I hope it keeps going.”

Jake Allen made 32 saves in the win.

Montreal improved to 18-18-7.

“Our intensity was there,” St. Louis said. “We had to weather a storm at the start of the second period but that didn’t kill us, it didn’t knock us out of the game, and we made a good push after that when we killed those penalties. And we stuck to the task at hand.”

The Avalanche took a 1-0 lead in the opening stanza on a power play strike by Ross Colton at 4:28.

Montreal replied with a marker form Juraj Slafkovsky, also off the power play, at 7:17 to tie it, 1-1.

“He can be so dominant down there,” Montreal’s Nick Suzuki said. “Nobody can really push him around. He’s got a lot of talent in tight around the net, so it’s nice to see him go in there.”

Colorado dropped to 28-13-3.

“There’s not much not to like in the final 40 minutes from our team,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You know, the second period was outstanding, had trouble putting the puck in the net a little bit, probably would want a couple of those goals back in the second and third. It didn’t look like we had our ‘A’ game when it comes to the energy standpoint.

“We didn’t manage the puck as good as we normally do at times in the game but played pretty hard and did some good things, just didn’t capitalize and gave up a few easy ones.”

The two teams traded goals in the middle frame.

The Avs reclaimed the lead, 2-1 on a marker form Cale Makar with 61 seconds gone in the frame.

Again, Montreal responded with a goal, this time from Rafael Harvey-Pinard to knot it, 2-2, at 16:08.

In the third, Montreal took the lead for the first time when Cole Caufield hit off the power play at 1:52 with a shot from below the left face off circle.

“It was a great shot, taking that space, working off the goal line, going far side,” Suzuki said. “It’s really tough. Not a lot of guys can make that happen.”

Midway through the third., the Avs tied it, 3-3, on a strike by Devon Toews.

“Just a lot of average from us tonight, not good enough,” Toews said. “We have such high standards on this team. A lot of teams would be fine being in a one-goal game, and that’s not us. We’ve got to drive the play a little bit more and tonight, we didn’t do that.”

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Alexandar Georgiev made 30 saves in the loss.

“It takes a lot of guts to be able to do that,” Bednar said. “He’s struggling through a time right now, and we wish him the best. We’re going to miss him, no question, but we’re there for him and hopefully, he goes and gets taken care of and is able to get back to us sometime soon.”