Monahan's OT goal lifts Flames past Sabres
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[October 19, 2016]
CALGARY, Alberta -- Sean Monahan
was the one who scored in overtime Tuesday, but he gave his linemate
Johnny Gaudreau most of the credit.
The Calgary Flames center scored at 2:26 of the extra session to
lead his team to a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres at the
Scotiabank Saddledome.
Monahan took a nice saucer pass from his left winger and snapped a
shot past Buffalo goaltender Robin Lehner to give the Flames (1-2-1)
their first win of the season.
"I just tried to get open," said Monahan, who has two goals in four
games. "Johnny had the puck. When he has the puck you try to find a
soft spot. He threw a sauce on my stick. It was a great play there
by Johnny."
Right winger Micheal Frolik, left winger Micheal Ferland and rookie
left winger Matthew Tkachuk also scored for the Flames (1-2-1),
while goaltender Chad Johnson made 18 saves against his old team.
"That was huge," Monahan said of Johnson, who signed as a free agent
with the Flames in the off season after compiling a 22-16-1 record
last year with the Sabres to go with a 2.36 goals-against average
and a .920 save percentage. "It's his old team there. He's confident
in his crease. He's moving the puck well and made some huge saves
and kept us in the game."
Zemgus Girgensons, Ryan O'Reilly and Marcus Foligno scored for the
Sabres (1-1-1), while Lehner stopped 30 shots.
"We've got to play better," Lehner said. "We got away from our game
plan a little bit. To be fair, Calgary kept going. I think we gave
them a little bit too much."
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Despite scoring his third goal of the season, O'Reilly wasn't happy
that the Sabres weren't able to hold onto leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2.
"I don't think there's many positives to take at all," O'Reilly
said. "Our compete level, our execution was just embarrassing.
That's not the way we want to be. We want to be a consistent team.
We have to be a lot better."
Ferland backhanded a shot to the top corner past Lehner a 1:10 of
the third period before Foligno replied with a goal for the Sabres
at 3:49.
The barrage of goals continued as Tkachuk scored his first NHL goal
1:03 later. Tkachuk took a pass from center Matt Stajan and snapped
a shot to the short side past Lehner to tie the score at 3-3.
"Obviously unbelievable," said Tkachuk of his milestone moment. "You
dream about scoring in the NHL for a long time. Now that I've got
the first one out of the way, hopefully we can just keep rolling as
a team and keep putting the puck in the back of the net like we did
tonight."
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![](../images/101816pics/sports90.jpg)
Sabres center Johan Larsson (22) and Calgary Flames center Sean
Monahan (23) battle for the puck during the first period at
Scotiabank Saddledome. Mandatory Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY
Sports
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The Sabres went up 2-1 with a power-play goal at 11:41 of the second
period. Johnson made the initial save to stop a slap shot off the
stick of O'Reilly, but the puck bounced off Flames defenseman Dougie
Hamilton and into the net.
During an early power-play opportunity in the first period, Flames
right winger Alex Chiasson tipped a shot taken by left winger
Ferland on net that Lehner was able to turn aside. Lehner then
stopped Ferland's rebound attempt to keep the game scoreless.
Girgensons swatted a nice feed from center Tyler Ennis past Johnson
at 7:25 of the first to put the Sabres up 1-0.
The Flames pulled even at 16:12 when Frolik tapped a loose puck in
the crease past Lehner, who blocked a point shot by defenseman Brett
Kulak before also turning aside a shot by center Mikael Backlund.
For Kulak, it was his first NHL point in his 11th game.
NOTES: Sabres C Derek Grant spent last year in the Flames'
organization. Although he only had one assist in 15 games with the
Flames, Grant led the AHL's Stockton Heat with 45 points (27 goals,
18 assists) in 36 games. ... After being called up from the AHL's
Rochester Americans on Saturday, Sabres RW Nicholas Baptiste made
his NHL debut on Tuesday in Calgary. He was a plus-1 in 8:50 of ice
time covering 14 shifts. ... Buffalo's healthy scratches were D
Casey Nelson and RW Hudson Fasching, while LW Evander Kane is out
week-to-week with cracked ribs. ... The Flames went with the same
lineup that they did in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Canucks in
Vancouver on Saturday, meaning that D Dennis Wideman, D Nicklas
Grossmann and C Freddie Hamilton were healthy scratches. ... The
Flames announced Monday that they signed G Tom McCollum to a
two-year, two-way contract and then assigned him to the AHL's
Stockton Heat.
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