(Montreal) The Canadian made a great team effort Monday night at the Bell Centre, but lost an important soldier during the battle.
Kirby Dach scored the winning goal in the shootout and the Montreal squad defeated the Calgary Flames 2-1 at the Bell Centre.
Dach scored with a shot to the top of the mitt side. Jake Allen then frustrated Nazem Kadri.
“It’s a good team victory,” said Canadiens head coach Martin St-Louis. It wasn’t perfect, but it was one of our best games in 60 minutes, detail-wise.
“We have passed the penalties well. I would have liked our power play to give us the lead or the win, but we kept playing. We went for an extra point which I believe we deserved. »
However, the Habs lost forward Cole Caufield four minutes into the second period. Caufield was the victim of a hard contact with Flames forward Trevor Lewis.
The two players seemed to see each other at the last moment and Caufield was thrown violently onto the ice. He did not return to the game.
The Canadian simply announced that Caufield was injured in the upper body. St-Louis said his medical condition will be reassessed on Tuesday. Caufield’s teammates didn’t seem overly worried about him in the dressing room after the game.
In 28 games this season, Caufield has 16 goals and nine assists.
Josh Anderson scored in regulation time for the Canadian (14-12-2). Allen made 34 saves.
Jonathan Huberdeau generated the Flames’ offense (13-11-5). Jacob Markstrom stopped 37 shots.
The Flames were notably without forward Elias Lindholm (upper body) and defenseman Mackenzie Weegar (non-COVID-related illness).
They lost defenseman Chris Tanev in the second period. The latter was hit in the face by a powerful shot from Nick Suzuki.
The Canadiens will visit the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday. He will host the Anaheim Ducks at the Bell Center on Thursday.
A hot fight
Caufield was early in the game, hitting the crossbar on the power play after 1:45 of play.
The Flames also had bad luck on a power play early in the first period. A throw-in from Tyler Toffoli to the front of the net deflected off defender Joel Edmundson before ending up against the post to Allen’s left.
Anderson generated a few chances for the Canadian in the first period. He was notably frustrated by Markstrom after a good individual effort. He also set the table for Juraj Slafkovsky, but the Slovak’s shot was saved by the Flames goalie.
Toffoli reached the post again late in the first period, when he unleashed a powerful slap shot.
The Flames opened the scoring while Dach was in the dungeon after coming to the defense of Caufield by attacking Lewis. Huberdeau took advantage of a comeback to move the ropes at 5:04.
The Canadian then wasted 1: 40 of play on the power play of two men. Dach and Christian Dvorak were frustrated by Markstrom, while Joel Armia missed an open net.
Anderson brought everyone back to square one after 1:40 of play in the third period. He deflected a nice snap from Slafkovsky between Markstrom’s pads.
Allen then kept the Canadiens in the game by closing the door on Kadri on a two-man attack by the Flames against the Canadiens goalie with more than eight minutes left in the third period.
The Canadian was unable to take advantage of four minutes at four against three in overtime when Toffoli was sent off for high sticking.
It was finally Dach who decided in a shootout.
Locker Room Echoes
Jake Allen was happy to celebrate a win over Jacob Markstrom.
“I often played against Markstrom because we are the same age. It’s always fun to play against the best goalies in the league and I think he’s in that group. »
Kirby Dach wasn’t too upset even though the Canadian’s power play finished the game 0-for-7.
“We did everything except score. We generated a lot of scoring chances. Maybe we missed finishing. The movement was good, the plays were good, but the puck didn’t go in. »
Johnathan Kovacevic noted the confidence that reigned in the Canadian after two periods, even though the team was down 1-0 in scoring.
“We felt an energy that we weren’t out of the game. We never lost control of the game. Martin [St-Louis] told us before the third period to be patient. We didn’t know if we were going to tie after two minutes or 19 minutes and 30 seconds. We had to be patient and follow the game plan. That’s what we did. »