AP
Published 1:18 a.m. ET Feb. 2, 2017 | Updated 22 minutes ago
Calgary Flames goalie Brian Elliott blocks a shot by the Minnesota Wild during the second period of an NHL hockey game Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017, in Calgary, Alberta. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)
(Photo: The Associated Press)
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Sean Monahan picked a great time for his first two-goal game of the season.
The 22-year-old forward scored a pair of power-play goals to lead the Calgary Flames to a 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night.
“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,” said Monahan, who has eight goals in his past nine games. “When you play with good players you get a lot of opportunities.”
Deryk Engelland had a goal and an assist, and Alex Chiasson and Micheal Ferland also scored to help the Flames win consecutive games after losing four straight.
“They played last night 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.”
Jason Zucker scored and Devan Dubnyk stopped 31 shots for the Wild, who had won three straight and five of six overall. Minnesota was 12-0-2 in its previous 14 road games.
“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, but they came out strong in the third, which is usually a forte of ours and we didn’t get it done.”
Dubnyk, who had his nine-game road winning streak snapped, had to be sharp early to stop back-to-back shots by Ferland and Lance Bouma, while Elliott was forced to stand his ground to stop a snap shot fired his way by Zach Parise.
Rookie forward Matthew Tkachuk gave the Flames a spark 3 1/2 minutes into the game when he flattened Wild center Eric Staal with a shoulder check in the Calgary zone.
The Flames opened the scoring at 4:26 when Sam Bennett banked a shot off Chiasson’s torso and past Dubnyk.
Monahan put Calgary up 2-0 with a power-play goal at 8:09. Johnny Gaudreau tipped a pass from Troy Brouwer on net that Dubnyk kicked right to Monahan, who put it in.
“It’s a long season,” Dubnyk said. “It’s not going to be perfect all the time. All we’ve got to do is understand why that game was 5-1 and get back to playing how we want to.”
The Wild, who outshot the Flames 13-9 in the opening 20 minutes, had a pair of great chances to score on a late power play, but Elliott turned aside one-time attempts by Mikko Koivu and Jared Spurgeon.
Parise appeared to pull Minnesota within a goal at 11:37 of the second when he jammed a loose puck in the crease into the net, but the goal was disallowed because the veteran Wild forward made contact with Elliott.
“I don’t think so,” Parise said when asked if the goal should have counted. “I’d love to say yeah, but if that happened to our guy, I think we’d all be pretty upset.”
Zucker tapped a backhand pass from Mikael Granlund past Elliott with 7:20 left in the period. After blocking a shot in the defensive zone, Zucker raced the length of the ice to score his 16th goal this season.
Monahan scored his second of the game and team-leading 18th of the season at 6:19 of the third when he took a pass from Dennis Wideman and snapped a shot to the top corner over the left shoulder of Dubnyk, who was screened by Brouwer on the play.
Engelland snapped a shot from the point through traffic past Dubnyk 1:36 later before Ferland rounded out the scoring with 6:13 to go.
NOTES: Granlund has at least one point in 11 straight games to tie Chicago’s Artem Anisimov for the longest streak in the NHL this season. It’s also a franchise record for the Wild. … Brouwer snapped a 10-game pointless drought, dating back to Dec. 19, with his assist on Monahan’s first goal. … After allowing the first goal in nine straight games, the Flames have opened the scoring in their past two.
UP NEXT
Wild: At the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday in the middle game of a three-game trip to Canada.
Flames: At the New Jersey Devils on Friday night.
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