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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Sport
Sarah McLellan

Scoreless duel finally ends with Flames edging Wild 1-0 in shootout

MINNEAPOLIS — The Wild didn't stand a fire extinguisher in their crease.

Filip Gustavsson is just playing like one.

After the goaltender doused the Flames over the weekend, Gustavsson was almost as airtight again in the rematch before Calgary prevailed 1-0 in a shootout on Tuesday in front of 18,998 at Xcel Energy Center to end the Wild's win streak at four games.

Still, the Wild are on a season-high 10-game point streak (8-0-2) that's tied for the third longest in franchise history.

Gustavsson stopped 26 shots after denying 31 tries from Calgary on Saturday in a 3-0 dusting that counted as his for second shutout of the season and in his NHL career.

Going back to a 2-1 shootout win over the New York Islanders on Feb. 28, Gustavsson has gone 175 minutes, 45 seconds without giving up a goal. He's 6-0-3 in his last nine starts, and this was the 21st time in 28 starts this season he's limited the other team to two goals or less.

After the Flames' first two attempts were unsuccessful, Nazem Kadri and Tyler Toffoli finally snapped the stalemate by capitalizing in the third and fourth rounds of the shootout after captain Jared Spurgeon had a goal in overtime overturned for being off-side. Frederick Gaudreau was the only goal scorer for the Wild in the shootout.

Calgary's Jacob Markstrom, who suffered the loss on Saturday and was also in net on Monday when the Flames eked out a 5-4 win at Dallas, finished with 43 saves.

Fresh off being named the NHL's Third Star of the Week, Gustavsson was tested early while Calgary was shorthanded.

That's also how he stymied the Flames on Saturday, his best stop coming in the third period when he blocked a shorthanded breakaway from Tyler Toffoli.

Special teams continued to headline the action, with Ryan Hartman committing a pair of penalties after a whistle to put Calgary on a four-minute power play. The Flames, however, ended up negating the end of that power play with their own penalty.

In the end, the Wild failed to convert on five power play opportunities while Calgary went 0-for-3.

After 10 saves for Gustavsson in the first period, he had a lighter workload in the second when he fended off only seven pucks but there were a few close calls.

He kicked out his right pad to keep out an attempt from Nick Ritchie after Ritchie found some space from the Wild defense. Then a Jakob Pelletier look trickled through Gustavsson's pad behind him in the crease, but he covered up the rebound before the Flames could retrieve it.

Toffoli also had another quality chance like he did on Saturday, this time smacking a shot off the crossbar in the third period; the night before, Toffoli scored with seven seconds remaining to lift Calgary past Dallas.

Hartman also nearly scored later in the period when his backhander during a breakaway went just wide. Seconds later, Markstrom stopped a chance from Spurgeon before Reaves almost ended the tie when he was alone in front.

After this shootout loss, the Wild have 79 points, which is only two back of the Stars for first place in the Central Division.

The Wild are back in action on Wednesday when they travel to face the Jets, one of the teams chasing them in the division.

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