The Calgary Flames, backed by a raucous Friday night crowd, defeat the Minnesota Wild 4-2 to keep the playoff drive alive.

It’s a Team Game – Calgary was ready from puck drop and got almost a full 60-minute effort in where they didn’t just control play, they dictated everything about it. The forwards were heavy on the forecheck and quick in transition – especially off turnovers. Defence was solid as they continually were able to get the puck out of their own zone and into the hands of their wingers so the attack could start all over again. The first period in this one was one of the better first periods they’ve played all season long – typically that’s their third period but getting a quality start in a game this big was crucial.

Corsi King – Mikael Backlund (70.52%) has gone from simply being back to now being on a tear. His line getting Coronato (71.64%) back has been a boost but after the captain got healthy from his injury, he’s been the same Backlund we’ve loved for 15 years again. January this year had me worried about regression, but those thoughts have all but evaporated with how things are going right now. Brayden Pachal (80.67%) had the best ratio of anyone albeit in just 11:28 of 5v5 ice time.

Taken By Chance – The resurgence of Yegor Sharangovich (83.14 SCF% || 100 HDCF%) was/is needed for Calgary. The secondary scoring is still pretty dry, and he is a piece on this roster intended to be a goal producer. It’s been, overall, a bad year. The last week has been quite good though and tapping home a goal out of mid-air on the rush was pretty sick. His line with Morgan Frost (83.14 per cent || 100 per cent) and Martin Pospisil (91.27 per cent || 100 per cent) had a five to nothing edge in high danger chances at 5v5. Always fun when you get to spend all night on the attack rather than defending.

xGF% – Jonathan Huberdeau (43.18 per cent) and Nazem Kadri (45.06 per cent) aren’t going to be split up while the Flames have a playoff shot, but they have not been working well together 5v5 in recent weeks. Production – not on the power play – is very minuscule and it’s something more eyes should be paying attention to. The skill of these two players is so high sometimes great individual efforts lead to some genos, but the play needs to be spent more attacking rather than these guys spending too much time trying to defend.

In The Crease – How dare they give up a breakaway on Wolf under 10 to go with a shutout on the line. He’s fighting for his Calder life over here against an Eastern media that only gets to see so much game action out west due to the starting times. Then they leave him out to dry! In reality the team played excellent in front of Wolf and gave him quite an easy night to earn the W. 1.10 expected goals against and the one goal behind him at 5v5.