MONTREAL (AP) — Carey Price made 23 saves, Brendan Gallagher, Shea Weber, Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli scored and unbeaten Montreal beat the Calgary Flames 4-2 on Thursday night in the Canadiens’ home opener.
“I think we were very opportunistic tonight,” Weber said. “I don’t think that was our best effort by any means. I think we’ve got a lot of room to improve here. That’s a good sign obviously because we’re playing well enough to win and we’re capitalizing.”
Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Jonathan Drouin each had two assists to help the Canadiens improve to 5-0-2.
“Everything is just clicking pretty good,” Kotkaniemi said. “It’s the feeling. Everything is just feeling right at the moment.”
Sam Bennett ended Price’s shutout bid with 1:18 left. Rasmus Andersson added a second power-play goal with 22.7 seconds to play.
“Just little things, little breakdowns cost us a couple goals there,” Flames defenseman Mark Giordano said. “I thought from there on we started taking way too many risks through the neutral zone and against a good-structured team, they’re going to make you pay.”
The teams will meet again Saturday night in Montreal.
NOTES: Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk dropped the gloves for a brief scrap with Montreal’s Ben Chiarot midway through the third period. … Corey Perry assisted on Gallagher’s goal for his 799th NHL point.
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