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Flames top Wild for second time this week

Dec 4, 2010 - 4:24 AM St. Paul, MN (Sports Network) - Rene Bourque scored the game-winner on the final attempt of the third round of the shootout to lift Calgary to a 3-2 win over Minnesota at Xcel Energy Center.

After Patrick O'Sullivan went top shelf short side to beat Henrik Karlsson to keep the Wild alive, Bourque wristed a shot between the pads of Niklas Backstrom to win the game.

Mark Giordano and Alex Tanguay potted goals in regulation for the Flames, who beat the Wild for a second time in five days.

"We had a bad stretch there for a while and we haven't been able to put two wins together," said Calgary captain Jarome Iginla. "We needed this one and we need to start stringing three or four wins together to get back in the hunt."

Karlsson stopped 20 shots to earn the second win of his young career.

Martin Havlat had a goal and an assist for the Wild, who have dropped four in a row and six out of their last seven. Backstrom took the loss after turning away 30 shots.

"We played a much better overall game than we did last time we faced them," Havlat said. "We got one point tonight and that's important."

Matt Stajan fed from behind the net in front to Tanguay, who one-timed a wrister past Backstrom to put the Flames in front 2-1 just over 4 1/2 minutes into the third period.

However, the Wild got the game tied eight minutes later when Havlat took a pass along the left side, skated past defenseman Giordano and then went forehand to backhander to beat a sprawled Karlsson.

Backstrom stopped Tanguay on a breakaway with just over three minutes left in overtime and made five saves in the five-minute period.

Mikko Koivu fired a backhand wide on the first shootout attempt before Tanguay beat Backstrom with a wrister to the far side.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Niklas Hagman then went scoreless in the second round of the shootout.

Following a scoreless first period, each team tallied in the middle stanza.

Bouchard chipped a rebound on the backhand to score his first goal since March 10, 2009 vs. San Jose to give the Wild the lead at 12:43.

Backstrom made a pad save on Hagman but Giordano was left alone at the right side of the net and stuffed home the equalizer at 19:27.

Game Notes

The Flames had lost seven of the previous nine meetings before Friday. Tanguay has 13 goals and 41 points in 47 career games against Minnesota...Iginla picked up an assist and has 57 career points, the most of any player ever against the Wild...Calgary defenseman Jay Bouwmeester played in his 450th consecutive game, the longest active streak in the league. Havlat has scored five goals and 16 points in his last 11 games...He has 13 goals and 23 points in 23 career games against the Flames...Backstrom is 9-8-4 in his career versus Calgary...The Wild were 0-for-4 on the power play and have cashed in just one of their last 26 man-advantage opportunities.