In Montreal, the Canadiens bolted out to a 4-0 lead over the Calgary Flames through two periods of play Thursday night.
Carey Price made 23 saves and lost his shutout with just over a minute to go in regulation.
Brendan Gallagher and Shea Weber each struck for power-play goals in the opening frame.
“The guys are excited, guys are playing with passion right now,” the Habs’ Shea Weber said. “And it’s different, obviously, with just all-Canadian (Scotia North) division. So we haven’t had a chance to play a whole lot of teams. But at the same time, it’s an opportunity for us to keep growing and getting better, and it’s a short season so it’s going to go fast, and we’ve just got to keep our foot down and keep going.”
Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli added goals in the second period before the Flames finally got on the board late.
“When we kept looking at it we couldn’t really determine whether it was for sure, one way or another,” Canadiens head coach Claude Julien said. “So at 4-0 I said it was worth taking a chance to try and save his shutout.”
Milan Lucic broke the shut out bid with 1:23 left in the game.
“It was a quick pace to start the game and they got the power plays and just little things, little breakdowns cost us a couple goals there,” Calgary’s Mark Giordano said. “Then I thought from there on we started taking way too many risks through the neutral zone, and against a good structure team they’re going to make you pay.”
Rasmus Andersson added a power play goal with less than 25 seconds on the clock for the final, 4-2.
David Rittich made 17 saves in the loss.
“There’s little moments where you have to generate emotion as a team,” Flames head coach Geoff Ward said. “And after we got down 3-0 we were trying to find those moments but we didn’t find as many as we needed to to get the next one and keep us tighter in the hockey game.”
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