CALGARY — A week ago, the Calgary Flames were winning despite Martin Pospisil's slump and the NHL club's weak power play.
The Flames won thanks to key contributions from both Saturday afternoon in a thrilling 4-3 shootout victory over the red-hot Minnesota Wild.
With the game tied 1-1 late in the second period, Calgary scored on its first power play of the game when Pospisil, stationed in front of the net, neatly steered Nazem Kadri's slap-pass behind Filip Gustavsson for his first goal in 20 games.
“When Marty is skating and physical, the offence follows him,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska. “If he really focuses on how he has to play every night, he's going to find goals like that, especially in that spot on the power play.
"He's one guy that we know is always going to go to the net.”
Yegor Sharangovich also scored a power-play goal in the third period.
The Flames produced two power play goals in a game for just the second time this season and the first time since their home-opening win Oct. 12 over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Calgary improved to 4-for-8 with the extra man over three games after a 2-for-37 skid had dropped them to 30th in the league.
While Minnesota got goals from Brock Faber and Marco Rossi in the final four minutes of the third to send the game to overtime, Calgary made it four straights wins and a perfect four-game homestand on Rasmus Andersson's deciding goal in the fifth round of the shootout.
“We probably should have finished it off in regulation, but that happens sometimes and it's a skilled group over there whose got a lot of confidence right now,” said Andersson.
Kevin Rooney also scored for Calgary (12-6-3), which has points in eight of its last nine (6-1-2). The Flames began the day a point back of the Vegas Golden Knights atop the Pacific Division.
Marcus Johansson also scored for Minnesota (13-3-4), which was without leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov (lower body). Despite that, the Wild have claimed points in seven of their last eight (5-1-2).
In Tuesday's 2-1 shootout win over the New York Islanders, the goal that broke Calgary's power play out of its four-week slump was also huge.
That night, it was that same combination of Kadri and Pospisil creating the goal by setting up Andersson.
That ended Pospisil's 15-game point drought.
“I've been through lots of tough situations in my career,” said Pospisil. “You just have to stay positive and work hard every day, even if there's some tough days.”
A catalyst for the invigorated man advantage was changing personnel on the two units. The players are also passing the puck faster.
“We're just moving the puck well. When we have shooting opportunities, we shoot, and we're trying to work the puck back (to the blue line) as quickly as possible after we shoot it,” said Andersson. “It's a good feeling and now we've just got to keep it going. That's the tough part.”
The Flames start a four-game road trip Monday in Ottawa.
Getting the win for Calgary with 20 saves, and also breaking out of a slump, was goalie Dan Vladar.
The 27-year-old Czech, who started for the first time in 11 days, had been winless in his previous three starts and 1-4-2 in seven.
“It was emotional for me, I really wanted to finally grab the win and then you get knocked down on your back with 30 seconds left,” said Vladar. “But I'm happy with the group. They did an awesome job in overtime, then won it in a shootout.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2024.
Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press