Calgary Flames (2) vs Minnesota Wild (4): Flames Retire Iginla’s Number & Their Win Streak

Calgary Flames 2 – Minnesota Wild 4

Complete Stats

Recap

The Flames started the night with a beautiful ceremony to honour Jarome Iginla and then the game happened. Calgary played an extremely fast first period, but came out one goal down after 20 and never really looked in sync and their seven game winning streak would end with a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.

The Flames would get the only goal of the second period on a beautiful play involving Mark Giordano, Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. Giordano would feed Gaudreau who wasted no time sending the puck to Sean Monahan on the door step for his 30th goal of the season. That was really the lone highlight, despite Travis Hamonic notching his 6th goal of the season in the third period to get the Flames within one.

Mike Smith kind of put this game away with a costly turnover in the third period while playing the puck behind his net. Smith left his crease to play a loose puck and he and Noah Hanifin got tangled up a bit, both playing the puck which allowed the puck to squirt free and Matt Read would fire the puck home for his first goal of the season. That goal took some serious momentum away from the Flames as did Ryan Suter’s goal at 11:07 and Minnesota would walk out of Calgary with a 4-2 victory.

Scoring

Flames

1st: None

2nd: 9:08- Monahan (30) (Gaudreau/Giordano)

3rd: 14:29- Hamonic (6) (Backlund/Hanifin)

Wild

1st: 3:17- Staal (19) (Zucker/Greenway)

2nd: None

3rd: 4:13- Read (1) (Unassisted), 11:07- Suter (7) (Greenway), 18:18-Donato (8) (Spurgeon/Suter)

Final Thoughts

This was a true stinker, which is a bummer seeing the Flames organization did such a great job honouring Jarome Iginla beforehand. Maybe the moment and pagentry was too much for the Flames, but after the initial rush of the ceremony and first half of the first period, Calgary didn’t look strong.

You hate to hang this game on Mike Smith because he’s been playing so well, but his aggressive play of the puck that lead to a Wild goal really hurt the Flames. Ryan Donato’s late third period goal was a back breaker as Calgary had scored just four minute prior to that to cut the lead to 3-2. In the end, it probably didn’t matter seeing the Flames just didn’t seem to have it tonight.

Expect Garnet Hathaway to receive a call from Player Safety for his dangerous hit that got him the gate early on. Not good.

Flame Of The Game

Jarome Iginla: Iggy was funny, appreciative and mostly humble in his speech as his number was raised to the rafters of the Saddledome. What a great moment for the team, the fans and Iginla himself.

What’s Next?

3/4: Calgary Flames vs Toronto Maple Leafs, 7 PM MT

by Mark Parkinson