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Late surge lifts Wild over Flames

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Glen Gulutzan gave an impassioned speech to the media after Thursday’s 2-1 loss to the visiting Carolina Hurricanes. His message could be boiled down to three words: Clean. It. Up.

And it was apparent the Calgary Flames received the memo, judging by the way the team played to start Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.

But what looked like what was going to be a Flames win that was easy on the unnecessary penalties, showed some resilience when the visitors battled in the second period, and stayed disciplined to the end, turned sour quickly.

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In 95 seconds to be exact.

After controlling the play for much of the game, the Wild scored back-to-back at the midway point of the third period to pull ahead 3-2 when Eric Staal and Jared Spurgeon took advantage of some Flames defensive miscues.

“For the first 50 minutes (there was some improvements),” said Kris Versteeg who scored 43 seconds into the third period to pull the Flames ahead 2-1. “Then, we kind of threw it away. I think it was more puck management as a whole. It’s disappointing.”

With 7:52 remaining, Calgary still had oodles of time to bounce back. Didn’t happen.

Fans hit the exits with 1:03 remaining when a turnover at the Wild blueline led to an empty-netter from Daniel Winnick.

The Flames drop to 4-4 and are 1-3 at home.

“You want to win at home,” said netminder Mike Smith who saw 31 pucks. “You want to put a show on for your fans, they come out and support us. We want to win here and be hard to play against in our own rink. Our record isn’t where we need it to be and needs to improve. But we did a lot of good things in (Saturday’s game).”

It was almost a cruel irony that the Wild, out-played for much of the first period, won the way they did.

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Their first goal was a perfect example. Michael Stone had taken a holding penalty on Zack Mitchell but, because of what looked like an injury to his right hand, the infraction was served by Matthew Tkachuk. Then, shortly after, the Flames took another penalty. This time, it was a suspect call on Troy Brouwer who was tabbed for interference on Eric Staal. That gave the Wild a 1:18 five-on-three which they scored on — with two seconds left.

Chris Stewart banged home his sixth goal in six games, depositing a stick-side rebound off his first shot 4:49 into the second.

The Flames did have a few chances for the remainder of the middle frame. At the eight-minute mark of the second, Johnny Gaudreau set up Curtis Lazar on a rush and he unleashed a shot on Alex Stalock. But when the rebound shot out to Gaudreau, he missed.

At the seven-minute mark, Sean Monahan nearly had a re-direct after fighting off man-to-man coverage by Calgarian Matt Dumba.

Monahan eventually connected — his fifth goal in the last six games, giving him points in six of the first eight games this season. The one-timer was a momentum-changer, especially with 27.5 seconds left in the second to knot the score 1-1. And a beauty, too, with an equally impressive set-up by Troy Brouwer along the boards.

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Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau challenged the goal, believing the play was off-side.

It wasn’t, and as the newly revised Rule 78.7 indicates, if the result of the challenge was on-side, the goal counts and the team that issued the challenge shall be assessed a minor penalty for delay of game.

So, to start the third period, the Flames had a power-play. But just 23 seconds in, it turned into a five-on-three when Ryan Suter was caught for slashing Johnny Gaudreau.

And, 20 seconds into the Flames’ two-man advantage, Versteeg scored with some fancy stick-handling at the side of Stalock’s net.

Stalock, by the way, had taken over duty after Devan Dubnyk made 26 saves in a 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.

Again, Smith was excellent in the losing effort as the Flames out-shot the Wild 37-32.

Early in the first period, Minnesota’s Luke Kunin nearly scored when Smith bobbled the puck in his crease. Luckily, the skilled puck-handler managed to send it out of harm’s way.

But it was a slow start for Smith, who only faced two shots in the opening 10 minutes of play while the Flames, in the first five minutes, were out-shooting the Wild 8-1. Smith also made an awesome save on Winnik a minute before the Flames scored the game-tying goal.

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“I thought it was one of the more competitive games we’ve played,” he said. “Our first period, we were jumping and forcing them to take penalties on us. For the most part of the season, it’s been the opposite. We’ve been the team slow out of the gates and taking penalties and losing momentum.

“But we made them take penalties on us because we were strong on our feet, executing . . . we did a lot of good things tonight and probably deserved a better fate.”

And, for your daily Jaromir Jagr update, he looked solid on the first-unit power-play in the opening period. He nearly scored on a rebound off Gaudreau’s shot and had another chance in front of Stalock’s net.

Bad news, though. The 45-year-old living legend only played 3:49 of ice time, leaving in the first period with an apparent lower-body issue.

“I thought, all in all, it’s probably the best game we’ve played all season and we didn’t get a result,” Gulutzan said. “I liked our focus and discipline and the way we played. Like I’ve said to you quite a bit, the league is unforgiving.

“Four-and-four is probably our record with the way we’ve played. Tonight we deserved a better fate but we didn’t. And we are where we are.”

kodland@postmedia.com

http://www.twitter.com/Kristen_Odland

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