In Calgary, the Flames won their 11th straight home game with a 7-3 decision over the Minnesota Wild, on Saturday.
Matthew Tkachuk and Tyler Toffoli hit for a pair of goals each in the Flames win.
“I think that’s kind of one of the things this team takes pride in is bouncing back and bouncing back after a tough night in Vancouver too,” Toffoli said. “That was definitely one of the responses we wanted and moving forward playing a full 60 minutes and just working hard and playing our type of game.”
Jacob Markstrom made 22 saves in the Calgary win.
Kirill Kaprizov had a goal for Minnesota.
“They want to win on the other end just as bad as us, but you’ve got to have that little extra pop in your game,” Minnesota’d Nick Bjugstad (goal) said. “I don’t know. Sometimes, some nights, it’s hard to explain why it’s not there. I think we have the leadership. We have the guys in this room that want to win bad enough, so you look in the mirror and tighten your bootstraps up and try to find a way in times like this.”
The Wild fell to 31-16-3.
“We’re a really good hockey team and we know what to expect out of ourselves,” the Wild’s Marcus Foligno said. “It takes one win to get us feeling good again, but sometimes when you’re in that funk the next win’s the toughest thing. So right now, we’ve just got to get home and make sure we put up a good fight next game.”
Minnesota’s Frederick Gaudreau also scored, his strike gave the Wild a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Calgary replied with goals from Toffoli, Tkachuk, and Erik Gudbranson for a 3-1 lead.
“First goal, we stuck with it and we stuck to the game plan,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. “There were parts of the first where we were really good at it and it allowed us to have some success in their zone.”
The Flames improved to 31-14-6.
“We want to be known as a team that when we get the lead, we can shut a team down and kind of push them right out of our building,” Tkachuk said. “I thought we did that for two periods, played solid, but (then) gave them a little bit of life. We don’t want to give teams any life.”
Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman pushed the lead to 5-1 in the second period.
The Wild closed to 5-3 in the third, but Tkachuk and Toffoli hit empty net goals for the 7-3 final.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 28 saves in the Wild loss.
“I guess the best thing possibly is we play them in two nights,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said. “If we have that type of effort, we’ll get embarrassed again. Nobody wants to be embarrassed. Those are professional hockey players in there. We’ll respond.”
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