The Canadian Press
CALGARY–Sean Monahan picked a great time to notch his first two-goal game of the season.
The 22-year-old forward scored a pair of power-play goals, including the winner in the third period, to lead the Calgary Flames to a 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild last night at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“It’s that time of the year where you don’t get as many man advantages so they are crucial, and you’ve got to find ways of putting the puck in the back of the net and we did that tonight,” noted Monahan, who has scored eight goals in his past nine games.
“When you play with good players, you get a lot of opportunities.
“Sometimes good things happen,” he added. “Right now I’m getting some good looks, and I’m going to try and continue to work hard and be there for the team.”
Deryk Engelland had a goal and an assist for the Flames (26-24-3), who now have won back-to-back games after losing their previous four.
“They played last night [Tuesday] and we knew that, so we had to come out with a big start,” said Engelland, who praised goalie Brian Elliott for his 28-save performance.
“‘Moose’ was huge at key times of the game to keep us up and when we got the chances, we put it in the back of the net.”
Alex Chiasson and Micheal Ferland also scored for the Flames, who start a three-game road trip tomorrow in New Jersey against the Devils.
Jason Zucker replied for the Wild (33-12-5), who had won three in a row and five of their past six.
“They played better than us,” said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team beat the Oilers 5-2 one night earlier in Edmonton.
“I thought going into the third period we still had a shot at it,” he noted. “But they came out strong in the third, which is usually a forte of ours, and we didn’t get it done.”
Goalie Devan Dubnyk stopped 31 shots for the Wild, who had gone 12-0-2 in their past 14 road games.
“It’s a long season,” said Dubnyk, whose streak of nine-straight road wins also was snapped last night.
“It’s not going to be perfect all the time,” he reasoned.
“All we’ve got to do is understand why that game was 5-1 and get back to playing how we want to.”
Elsewhere in the NHL, Washington beat Boston 5-3 and L.A. blanked Colorado 5-0.
