Radulov, Price help Canadiens douse reeling Flames
MONTREAL -- Alexander Radulov scored twice to help the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
Andrew Shaw, Tomas Plekanec and Daniel Carr also scored for the Canadiens (29-13-7), who received 30 saves from Carey Price.
Sam Bennett scored and Chad Johnson stopped 15 shots for the Flames (24-24-3), who were shut out for the second straight game and dropped their fourth consecutive contest.
The Flames had a chance to open the scoring just over a minute in when Alex Chiasson took advantage of a Nathan Beaulieu mistake just outside the Calgary blue line to break out on a 2-on-1 rush with Johnny Gaudreau. Chiasson fed Gaudreau in the slot but Price denied the Calgary sniper.
A fairly quiet opening period ended in the Canadiens' favor with 43 seconds remaining.
Sven Andrighetto went for a wraparound behind the net before dishing off to Shaw inside the right circle, who fired a shot past a screened Johnson.
It marked the ninth straight game that the Flames have given up the first goal, and the 31st time in 51 contests this season.
Plekanec put Montreal ahead by a pair with a short-handed tally at 4:53 of the second period. After Gaudreau whiffed on a pass just inside the blue line, the Canadiens center drove up the ice on a 2-on-1 and sent a wrister from the right dot between Johnson's legs.
Radulov's 11th of the season gave Montreal a 3-0 lead at 9:02 on the power play when he took a perfect cross-ice feed from Beaulieu and wired a shot from the circle.
Carr added to the offense at 8:08 of the third period, taking a Torrey Mitchell feed for a one-timer from the circle on Montreal's second shot of the period.
Radulov notched his second of the night, again on the power play at 16:07, when he picked up a loose puck and easily lifted a backhander past Johnson.
Bennett busted Price's shutout bid on the power play with 1.1 seconds remaining on the clock.
NOTES: Montreal C Alex Galchenyuk missed the game after "lightly" re-aggravating his knee injury on Saturday and remains day-to-day. ... Canadiens LW Daniel Carr replaced him in the line-up after sitting out the past five games as a healthy scratch, leaving D Ryan Johnston as the lone scratch. ... Calgary scratched C Freddie Hamilton and D Jyrki Jokipakka. ... Including Tuesday's game, the Flames are playing 10 of their next 13 games on the road. ... The matchup was the 112th all-time meeting between the Canadiens and the Flames franchise (dating back to its days in Atlanta).