It's the game everyone's been waiting for when Minny comes to town (8 p.m. MT/Sportsnet West)
This one has been circled on the calendar for quite some time now.
It was expected this game would play a pivotal part in the Flames’ postseason push as they look to chase down the Wild. It’s lived up to that advance billing, and more.
Calgary trails Minny by five points for a wild-card spot with a game in hand. Here are the records and games left after tonight:
Wild (43-29-7, 93 points)
Flames (37-27-14, 88 points)
After letting a late 3-1 lead evaporate in a 4-3 OT loss to the Ducks in Anaheim Wednesday night (CLICK HERE TO READ THE GAME STORY), getting two points tonight is essential.
The Flames, who stayed over in California and flew back to Calgary Thursday, has been playing must-win hockey for some time now, but this game is must, must-win territory.
And they can perhaps use Wednesday’s loss as additional motivation.
That’s if they needed any more already.
“We should be disappointed, it’s 3-1 and the game should be over,” said Head Coach Ryan Huska after the loss. “But right now, there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is make sure we’re ready to for our next game at home, against Minnesota. That’s what we have to do, and the best thing that we can do is make sure we bring our best effort.”
“Obviously it’s tough right now, the game just ended,” said defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the dressing room. “Tough one to think about. We jump back on the bird and get to Calgary, I’m sure we’ll talk about some scenarios and what could happen, and whatnot. We’ve got a big, big game coming up here on Friday. Need everybody to show up.”
The Flames are a perfect 2-0 against the Wild this season, but the game have been close – both decided by a single goal. They beat them 4-3 in a shootout on Nov. 23 at the Scotiabank Saddledome and 5-4 on Jan. 25 in Minny.
See all the action from Wednesday night’s game
It was an old-fashioned barn-burner Wednesday night in St. Paul.
The end result a bit of a gut punch for the Flames on a night they had to settle for a single point in their tilt.
The Wild welcomed back Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek and after both missed lengthy spells with injuries, the duo combining for six goals in a – if you’ll excuse the pun – wild 8-7 overtime victory.
Minny built up a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes before both teams went off for three goals apiece in the middle stanza. Eriksson Ek scored twice in the first 2:06 of the third period, but the Sharks stormed back with three straight to tie the game and force OT.
Kaprizov would tally his second 1:01 in to give the Wild the massive two points.
“Obviously (Eriksson Ek) and Kirill were huge difference makers in the game,” Wild coach John Hynes told NHL.com after. “I’m happy for a lot of different reasons in that respect. It’s hard on those guys. They’re obviously tremendous competitors, they mean so much to the team and personally, they [want to] play and that was a lot of time off, a lot of rehab, a lot of dark days for them as well. Can they come back? Will they come back? And you know, you progress and there’s a setback or you progress and you’re not really what you need to be, but I give those guys credit, I give our training staff, our doctors and our strength and conditioning coaches credit, the guys were ready to play and they were huge difference makers in the game.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 24 stops for Minny, who outshot the Sharks 44-31 on the night.
Matt Boldy – who had four assists in the win over San Jose – leads the Wild in scoring with 26 goals and 71 points in 79 games, while Marco Rossi is second with 24 goals and 60 points in the same amount of skates. Kaprizov is third with 25 goals and 55 points in just 38 games.
“Not our best but (we) found a way to win and that’s all that matters,” said Boldy of Wednesday’s result. “Take what we can. We scored a lot of goals, if you want to look at a positive. But yeah, we can be better for sure.”
Nice Work, Cap!
On Wednesday night in Anaheim, Mikael Backlund scored his 212th career goal and tied Sean Monahan for the eighth-most in franchise history. Backlund is a single tally away from tying Al MacInnis (213) for the seventh-most, and three more goals would see him match Lanny McDonald’s 215 markers with the franchise, the sixth-most in Flames history.
Huby Doo
Jonathan Huberdeau enters tonight’s contest with 28 goals and is two away from reaching the 30-goal plateau for the third time in his career: (30 in 2018-19, 30 in 2021-22). Six of Huberdeau’s tallies have been game-winning goals which puts him one GWG away from matching his career-best of seven which he recorded during the 2021-22 campaign.
Since the NHL’s return from the Four Nations Face-Off, the Flames own a penalty-kill percentage of 85.7. As of April 10, that is tied for the second-best PK unit in the league since Feb. 20.
Flames – Matt Coronato
He’s scored a goal in three straight games and has 23 goals this campaign, good for third behind Nazem Kadri (31) and Jonathan Huberdeau (28)
Coronato finishes off rebound from Backlund shot
Wild – Joel Eriksson Ek
Four goals is a tidy piece of work any night, much less your first night back after missing 21 games with a lower-body injury. Those four goals came on eight shots.
