The Minnesota Wild hope that the excitement and confidence from a big comeback can carry into their next game.
Minnesota will go for back-to-back wins when it faces off against the Calgary Flames on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn. The Wild are coming off a 4-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks that required a shootout round to decide.
The Blackhawks raced to a 3-0 lead before the Wild responded with three goals in a row to erase the deficit. Jared Spurgeon scored the tying goal in the final minutes, and Kirill Kaprizov provided the winner in the shootout.
It was another highlight in a season filled with many for Minnesota.
“We are a very strong group, and the guys on the team are super resilient,” goaltender Jesper Wallstedt said. “Going out in the third, we knew our best periods are usually the third. We knew we were well prepared, and we knew we’ve worked hard all summer for the end of games.
“I felt the push we had was very strong. It felt very good.”
The challenge now is for the Wild to avoid a letdown performance two days later. They are 4-1-1 in their past six games and showing strong signs of breaking out of a funk that lasted from late December through the middle of January.
Meanwhile, Calgary is looking to snap a four-game winless streak. The Flames are 0-2-2 during that stretch, and they are coming off a 4-3 overtime loss against the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.
The challenge for the Flames to regroup did not get any easier Wednesday as the team announced that it is shutting down forward Blake Coleman until after the Olympic break. He sustained an upper-body injury Jan. 8 and hoped to return sooner but the Flames decided to take extra precaution and keep him out.
Coleman ranks second on the team with 13 goals this season. The only player with more is Matthew Coronato, who has 14 goals.
“What he brings on the ice is invaluable to our team,” Flames coach Ryan Huska said. “He’s an important piece of our team, for sure, so we miss him.”
Huska said Coleman’s extended absence created a chance for someone else on the Flames to step up and take on a more prominent leadership role.
“I look at it too as this is an opportunity for someone else to try and grab hold of a little bit of the leadership role that he plays with,” Huska said. “A forward to grab hold of the ‘play it right every shift’ mentality that Blake has. … When you’re missing a key person like that, you want other people to seize that opportunity.”
Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson likely will get the start after Wallstedt started the team’s previous game. Gustavsson is 17-9-6 with a 2.62 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage in 33 games (32 starts) this season.
In 10 career starts against the Flames, Gustavsson is 5-2-2 with a 1.90 GAA and a .938 save percentage.
Calgary could counter with Dustin Wolf or Devin Cooley in net. Wolf is 15-20-3 with a 3.03 GAA and an .896 save percentage this season, and Cooley is 6-5-3 with a 2.17 GAA and a .924 save percentage.
Wolf is 3-0-0 with a 2.47 GAA and an .892 save percentage in four career games against Minnesota. Cooley is 0-1-0 with a 1.04 GAA and a .944 save percentage in one game against the Wild.
-Field Level Media
