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Bonk, Souray lead Canadiens past Flames

Oct 18, 2006 - 2:42 AM MONTREAL (Ticker) -- After the first two periods saw plenty of offense, the final session came down to goaltending.

Radek Bonk scored his first two goals of the season and defenseman Sheldon Souray added two tallies and an assist to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-4 victory over the Calgary Flames.

After both teams scored twice in the opening period, Montreal tacked on three more goals in the second with Alexei Kovalev netting the eventual game-winner with 4:06 left in the session.

With Calgary's Byron Ritchie being penalized for holding the stick, Kovalev made it 5-4 with a slap shot from the right faceoff circle. It was one of three power-play goals on the night for Montreal, which entered 3-for-16 with the man advantage this season.

"Last year I waited a long time for my first goal and today I got two," said Bonk, who scored just six goals last year - his lowest total since 1996-97. "Thanks to two very good passes from Johnny (Mike Johnson) and I have to thank him for that.

Bonk initially opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal 1:32 into the first period and forged a 3-3 tie 1:17 into the middle session.

"If I get a chance to help the team win on the penalty kill with a big kill I'll take that," Bonk said. "Today I got to score two goals, obviously that's good but the important thing is to win and that was a big win for us."

Cristobal Huet took over from there, finishing with 20 saves to pick up his first win of the season. He struggled over the first two periods but stopped all six shots he faced in the third.

"The whole team played hard the last 30 minutes when it was 4-on-4 and found a way to win," Huet said. "It wasn't pretty, but we found a way."

Montreal native Matthew Lombardi scored twice and blue-liner Dion Phaneuf added a tally and two assists for the Flames, who went 2-for-8 on the power play. They had been 1-for-34 with the extra skater entering Tuesday.

"Both teams took penalties when they were pressured down low in the offensive zone," Calgary coach Jim Playfair said. "In the second period, a lot of those penalties on us were deserved and they capitalized on three of them."

Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 31 shots for Calgary.