Calgary Flames Spoil The Minnesota Wild Party – Win 5-1
By Ramina Shlah
The Calgary Flames managed to sweep the Minnesota Wild in the season series, winning all three games. This last one definitely the prettiest win.
The Calgary Flames beat the Minnesota Wild 5-1 on Wednesday night to start February. The Flames definitely embarrassed the Wild in an impressive win and swept the season series. Not including this game, in the Wild’s last 14 road games, they went 12-0-2. They also haven’t lost a road-game in regulation since November 29th.
I mean, until now. *Sunglasses emoji*.
This win was definitely the nicer one of the three. For a few reasons.
- They scored five goals against one of the hottest teams in the league right now.
- Their special teams
- Brian Elliott
- Sean Monahan
- The most exciting: Deryk Engelland, our sniper, scored a goal
The Calgary Flames opened up the scoring in the first period and scored two goals in that opening 20-minute frame. The first goal came from Sean Monahan and he scored another goal later in the game. He now has eight goals in his last nine games. He was also recently on a five-game goal streak that was ended a week ago. He’s definitely having an impressive 2017 so far, that’s an understatement. He also got the first star of the game tonight.
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Like I mentioned, the Wild went 12-0-2 in their last 14 road games. This was the second longest road point-streak, with 14 games, since 2005. So definitely credit the Flames for being able to keep them quiet tonight.
Devan Dubnyk, the Wild goalie, went into this game with the best save-percentage and best GAA in the league. Did anyone see the Flames scoring five goals on him? I’m going to be honest here, I definitely did not.
The special teams were impressive as well. They went 2/4 on the PP and killed off all three penalties. Monahan scored both powerplay goals. Good job Monny. Keep it up.
The next story is Brian Elliott. After the coaching staff decided to go to with the win-and-start goaltending method, this was definitely the push Elliott needed to win this game. Unfortunately he couldn’t get a shutout with that one goal, however he still stopped 28 of 29 shots, earning the second star of the game. Since he won, he’ll be starting the next game.
Lastly but definitely not least, our SNIPER. Deryk Engelland found his name on the score-sheet twice tonight, with one goal and one assist. Also finding his name on another sheet, earning the third star of the game. Now, the Engelland goal was the most exciting goal for me, because I am a co-creator of the Deryk Engelland fan club. So you know I was jumping around like crazy when he scored. This was his second goal of the year.
Tonight, four different Flames got a goal. And 11 different players found their names on the score-sheet as well.
Next: Flames First Month of 2017 - Recap and Review
Man, this was an exciting win and exactly what the Calgary Flames needed. All the players I mentioned tonight needed this confidence boost. Let’s hope they can keep up this momentum and keep their playoff spot.