Suzuki, Canadiens end Flames road winning streak at five

MONTREAL -- Nick Suzuki and Brendan Gallagher each had a goal and an assist, and the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Calgary Flames 4-2 at Bell Centre on Thursday.

Jake Allen made 24 saves for Montreal (4-10-1), which won for the first time in four games.
"It was an intense game, physical enough, and our players responded," Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme said. "From beginning to end, I thought we were solid for 60 minutes."

Andrew Mangiapane scored his ninth goal for Calgary (7-3-3), which had its five-game road winning streak end. The Flames lost their second straight after going 7-0-3 during a 10-game point streak.
"We're a team that didn't make the (Stanley Cup Playoffs) last year," Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. "We're trying to stay in the race, that's the key. There's not enough difference in the League, I'll tell you that right now, that every game is a tough game.
"We're not a team that's going to score a lot so you're going to have to do a lot of grinding and banging away, and I think we did more of that tonight than we probably did the last couple of games."
Jacob Markstrom made 24 saves for Calgary, which began a seven-game, 11-day road trip.
"It's a long road trip and we wanted to start with a win, and I thought we had the game where we wanted to," Markstrom said. "But obviously we couldn't finish it."
Suzuki made it 3-2 with Montreal's second power-play goal at 12:08, banking a shot in off Markstrom's pad as he began to cut behind the net.
"He's coming down the wing, not really any backside pressure, I felt like I played a little aggressive, outside the post," Markstrom said. "Guys usually slide it five-hole there so I went down and he's either going to go around, wrap it, I've got to rotate. And I lifted my left leg and it hit my right leg while I was rotating. I needed to get inside the post and to the other side, and it went in."
Suzuki had tried to score on a shot from behind the goal line during 4-on-4 play but Markstrom made a glove save to stop play at 10:38.
"He had some words," Suzuki said. "I think he just said it wasn't going to work on him, but then the second one went in, so he gave a little tap after two shifts later."
Jake Evans scored into an empty net at 19:53 for the 4-2 final.
"He's been playing great," Suzuki said of Evans. "You can see when he's confident he's making plays, skating really well, great on the PK. We definitely need him to play great and he's been stepping up in big moments, and good to get rewarded with the goal at the end."
Mikael Backlund gave Calgary a 1-0 lead at 2:02 of the first. He deflected Trevor Lewis' wrist shot from the left point while he was being covered by Canadiens defenseman Chris Wideman in front of the net.

Ben Chiarot scored for a second straight game to tie it 1-1 at 9:26. The defenseman has four goals, tied for most on the Canadiens with Suzuki and Mike Hoffman, who had two assists.
"He's been around the blue paint a lot on the offensive side," Suzuki said. "But he's picking his points and doing a great job crashing the net, seeing an opportunity and capitalizing."
Mangiapane scored for a second straight game at 16:22 to put the Flames up 2-1. The Calgary forward dropped his left knee to the ice to take Sean Monahan's cross ice pass off his right skate while he drove the right side and scored on a backhand over Allen's left shoulder.
Gallagher drew Montreal even for the second time with a power-play goal at 11:24 of the second period. He tied it 2-2 when he tapped in a loose puck in the crease after Wideman's shot from the point struck the right post before bouncing off Markstrom's back.
NOTES: Mangiapane scored an NHL career-high 18 goals in 56 games last season, one more than he scored in 68 games in 2019-20. … Chiarot scored one goal in 41 games last season and has 27 in 431 NHL games with Montreal and the Winnipeg Jets. … Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin missed his fourth game since he was hit in the head by a shot by teammate Brett Kulak on Nov. 2. He is day to day because of headaches but will be on Montreal's three-game road trip that begins at the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.