Flames Visual Recap 52: Six Flames put up multi-point nights in big win over Wild

The Calgary Flames and Minnesota Wild faced off against each other in the second game of the teams’ home-and-away series, with both teams travelling from Calgary to Minnesota between games. Calgary stuck to the same roster with Brett Ritchie and Brad Richardson dressing while Dillon Dube and Adam Ruzicka watched from the press box—a questionable move for Calgary’s roster composition.

First period

The Flames opened the game with an early goal off of an early power play. With lots of cross-seam passing and making Minnesota’s penaly killers move laterally to catch up, Matthew Tkachuk became wide open for a quick one-timer that beat former Flames goaltender Cam Talbot.

After the goal, the Wild pushed back throughout the period, but the Flames ended up netting the second goal as well, sapping the Wild of any momentum they had. With just over seven minutes to go, Erik Gudbranson took a shot from the blueline that pinballed in every direction, first tipping off Blake Coleman, then Andrew Mangiapane, then even Mikael Backlund—all before the puck dropped right in front of the crease for Mangiapane to take a well-timed swing at it to score.

Calgary went into the first intermission with a two-goal lead, with much of the credit going to Jacob Markstrom to keep the Wild goalless.

Second period

In the second, the it was all Calgary to start the frame. However, Minnesota drew back within one goal on a quick play in transition. Kirill Kaprizov gained possession in the Flames’ zone and passed it to Marcus Foligno, who managed to score while falling.

However, just 21 seconds later, Calgary restored their lead thanks to a perfectly placed shot by Elias Lindholm.

This game was littered with penalties, which included a first period tilt between Nikita Zadorov and Ryan Hartman. Both teams totalled 15 PIMs each by the time the second period concluded. Over the course of the game, the Flames went 2-for-3 on their power play while the Wild went 0-for-4.

Third period

The Flames actually entered the third period with a power play spilling over from the second, and with the first unit on the ice, Johnny Gaudreau sent the net to the crease to a perfectly placed stick blade of Tyler Toffoli for a tip-in goal.

With the Flames up three goals, they uncharacteristically eased back instead of pushing the offensive pace as they usually do. It did lead to sustained pressure by the Wild with little offence generation from the Flames, but Markstrom was sharp and didn’t give up another goal.

Towards the end of the game, the Wild pulled Talbot early and Backlund sealed the deal with the empty-netter, tallying the Flames’ fifth goal of the game. Six forwards picked up multi-point nights: the five goal scorers and of course Gaudreau.

The Flames emphatically sweep the home-and-away set against the Wild, outscoring Minnesota 12–4 over the two games.

Check out the data visualisations from the game below!