Saturday, March 13, 2021 07:00 PM (ET)

Sean Monahan tallies twice to lead Flames past Habs

Field Level Media
Mar 13, 2021

Sean Monahan scored a pair of goals to pace the Calgary Flames to a 3-1 home victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, giving them consecutive wins for the first time in more than a month.

Goaltender Jacob Markstrom stopped 24 shots for the Flames, who have won both outings since new head coach Darryl Sutter stepped behind the bench. The Flames -- who reached the midway point of their season -- have won three of four clashes with the Canadiens this season and sit two points behind Montreal for fourth place in the North Division.

Goaltender Carey Price stopped 33 shots for the Canadiens, who lost consecutive games in regulation for the first time in more than a month.

Monahan became the first player from the 2016 draft -- in which he was taken sixth overall -- to hit the 200-goal mark when he opened the scoring at 5:38 of the first period. After Brett Ritchie knocked Joel Armia off the puck behind the Montreal net, Monahan grabbed it, went to the front of the cage, spun and sent a top-shelf effort.

With that tally, Monahan became the ninth player in franchise history to reach the 200-goal milestone and the seventh fastest, taking 567 games.

He wasn't done there. Monahan capped Calgary's strong opening period, in which they outshot the visitors 16-6, when his power-play goal doubled the lead at 13:56. Matthew Tkachuk won a battle in front of the net while players were fighting for a loose puck, and Monahan was on the spot for his seventh goal of the season.

New father Mikael Backlund then made it a 3-0 game with his fifth goal of the season. Andrew Mangiapane outbattled Jeff Petry for the puck and slipped a pass to the slot for Backlund to bury at 7:20 of the second period.

Petry made amends when he scored his 11th goal of the season, tops among the league's defensemen, to put the Canadiens on the board with 5:40 remaining in the second period, but a comeback was not in the works.

In fact, the Flames, who have won all 11 games this season in which they led after two periods, held the Canadiens to only two shots on goal over the final 11:47 -- including a stretch of nearly 10 minutes.

--Field Level Media

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