Habs drop another one

Flames drop Canadiens to snap four-game losing streak
The Canadian Press

CALGARY - Matthew Lombardi and Dustin Boyd scored short-handed goals for Calgary on Monday night to propel the Flames to a 6-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

With the Flames trailing 2-1 in the second period, Lombardi tied the game at 11:36, pouncing on a Sergei Kostitsyn miscue and racing in alone on Jan Halak, beating the Montreal goaltender with a backhander.

Thirty-two seconds later, Dion Phaneuf's shot deflected in off a Canadiens player to give Calgary its first lead of the night.

At 18:43 it was Andrei Markov's turn to mishandle the puck on a Canadiens power play. Eric Nystrom passed the puck ahead to Boyd, who went in all alone on Halak to score his first in 16 games to give the Flames a 4-2 lead and sending the sell-out crowd of 19,289 into a frenzy.

Michael Cammalleri, Rene Bourque and David Moss also scored for Calgary (31-18-4), which snaps a season-high four-game losing streak. Lombardi added two assists for his second three-point game of the season.

The victory increases the Flames' lead ahead of the Minnesota Wild atop the Northwest Division to seven points.

With the win Flames coach Mike Keenan tied Pat Quinn for fourth all time in NHL coaching wins with 657.

Matt D'Agostini and Tomas Plekanec scored for Montreal (29-19-6). The Canadiens began a season-long six-game road trip with their sixth straight defeat away from home. The trip continues with a stop in Edmonton on Wednesday night.

Calgary put the game away in the third period with Bourque scoring at 6:57 and Moss scoring the night's lone power-play goal at 11:51.

Making his first start in nine games, Halak was peppered for 41 shots in dropping to 11-10-1.

Miikka Kiprusoff made 22 saves to improve to 31-15-3.

Trailing 2-1 after 20 minutes, Calgary poured it on in the second, outshooting Montreal 20-4.

Despite the disparity in shots, the biggest save of the period belonged to Kiprusoff. After going over 14 minutes without a shot, Kiprusoff stacked his pads to deny Andrei Kostitsyn of what looked like the tying goal.

Boyd's goal came just over 30 seconds later.

With the teams playing four skaters aside, Montreal took a 2-1 lead at 18:41 of the first period.

Flames defenceman Mark Giordano lost the puck deep in the Canadiens zone, resulting in a long two-on-one for Montreal that ended with Alexei Kovalev neatly setting up Plekanec's one-timer.

In Montreal's first visit to Calgary in over three years, D'Agostini opened the scoring at 10:17 of the first period when Chris Higgins found the Canadiens rookie open in the slot with a centring pass.

The lead lasted less than three minutes as Cammalleri deflected in Adam Pardy's tricky bouncer from the blue-line at 12:55 tying it 1-1.

Notes: Calgary entered the night having scored just three short-handed goals all season. Montreal had only surrendered four prior to Monday night... In his four starts this season after having a game off, Kiprusoff is 2-1-1 with a 3.36 goals against average... Iginla has two goals in his last 16 games and has only scored in four of Calgary's last 26 games. Other Flames mired in lengthy goal droughts include Curtis Glencross (12 games), Daymond Langkow (10) and Craig Conroy (10)... The Flames broke up two of their defence pairings. Formerly with Pardy, Phaneuf partnered with Giordano while Pardy and Cory Sarich played together.

Sharko what is up with the HABS??? next thing u know they will be battling my Leafs for a top pick hahah

Yeah, its getting pretty bad, they have to try something else.

I think maybe giving a guy like Weber a shot on defense might be a good idea. O'Byrne is pretty much invisible out there. Although the real problems are the forwards. These guys need to get their asses in gear. We're starting to look like the Sens

Yeah they are playing horrible. I watched the game and up till the middle of the second period they were playing awesome. But then it all just fell apart. Halak let in two weak goals in a matter of minutes and the flames took the lead and never looked back. Montreal has some serious contention issues amongst the team members. It's like they don't want to play a full 60 minutes to win a hockey game anymore.