'SOTA POP

ST. PAUL - The Flames took matters into their own hands.
For the past few days, the Minnesota Wild spoke of the "embarrassment" they suffered on Saturday. They were taken to task, "out-competed in all areas," according to Head Coach Dean Evason, and lamented that effort by vowing to be better.
The thing is, the Flames have a habit of elevating their game, too.
And the key to surviving an early push from an ornery squad is not to endure one, at all.

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In a game that had all the ingredients of a spicy, playoff battle, a big start paved the way to victory. The Flames came out with all sorts of gumption, grabbed a lead, added to it, and held serve in a 5-1 win at the Xcel Energy Center.
Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane, Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli and Mikael Backlund took care of the offence, while Jacob Markstrom was absolutely sensational with 32 saves.
"We were prepared," Lindholm said. "Obviously, they have a good record here, so we were ready, we were hungry to get a win here. ... We (scored) some momentum goals and Marky was unreal in net.
"It was overall a solid game."
The Flames drew first blood with a powerplay marker a scant 1:12 into the game. The line of Sean Monahan, Milan Lucic and Toffoli set the tone with an excellent opening shift, drawing a penalty when Minnesota blueliner Alex Goligoski hauled Toffoli down at the side of the net.
Just 48 seconds into the advantage, Elias Lindholm gathered up a loose puck at the doorstep and delivered a sneaky pass across the paint to Tkachuk, who whistled a one-timer past Cam Talbot.
With the goal, Tkachuk pulled into a tie with Mangiapane for the team lead with 27.
The powerplay finished 2-for-3 on the night, while the PK silenced all four opportunities for the Wild.

Temporarily, anyway.
Mangiapane took back the solo lead at 12:42. Erik Gudbranson made a great play at the right point, cutting back and opening a lane, before filtering a soft shot through traffic. The puck pinballed around in front, before landing right on the tape of No. 88, who made no mistake from his office.
Right place, right time.
That's No. 28 on the year for the Bread Man, who has goals in three straight.

Moments later, frustration boiled over and Nikita Zadorov made short work of the smaller Ryan Hartman, earning the takedown in a brief, but spirited tilt near the penalty box.
(You may recall, Hartman was penalized on the play that sent Oliver Kylington careening into the end boards in first game of this home-and-home set.)
Indeed, the Wild pushed back in the latter half of the frame, but Markstrom - as he has been so often this year - was dialled in from the start. He stopped all 12 shots he faced and helped his 'mates with some key stoppages when a rest was needed after an extended, defensive shift.
He was equally good in the early part of the second, which featured a 10-bell stop off Mats Zuccarello, who snuck behind coverage and had a free look from the bottom of the right circle.
Markstrom stood his ground and made a great positional save.
Unfortunately, he couldn't stop them all.
The Wild briefly got back in the game when Kirill Kaprizov connected with a diving Marcus Foligno, who roofed his 18th of the year past Markstrom on a 2-on-1.
But the Flames answered right back, with the top line doing the damage on a pretty little sequence deep in enemy territory, 21 seconds later.
Lindholm circled the net and found a soft spot in coverage - peeling off the right circle and sniping a Johnny Gaudreau feed to the back of the cage.
It was an absolute dandy that beat Talbot clean over the blocker.

"This building here is such a momentum building," said Head Coach Darryl Sutter. "They play a physical, come-at-you-hard game, and to get that momentum right away with that shift, that's a big goal."
Late in the period, the pace picked up.
And so, too, did the snarl.
Both teams were laying huge hits, bringin' the nasty and offering a free face-wash at every opportunity, leading to multiple calls and post-whistle scrums. In the process, the homeside turned up the heat, offensively.
The Kaprizov line had an extended shift that put the Flames on their heels, and after a minute-long siege that rallied the raucous Minnesota crowd, a crossbar was as close as the Wild would get.
That proved costly for the locals, who took a late-period penalty to put the Flames on a powerplay that carried over into the third period.
Just 33 seconds into the stanza, Toffoli planted himself in the crease and put a target down for Gaudreau. No. 13 spotted him and feathered a sublime pass into the goalmouth, where Toffoli casually bumped it home.

Markstrom had to be sharp the rest of the way - and he was - to hold off a late surge and pick up his 25th win of the season. There's a reason the man was
named the NHL's Second Star of the Month early on Tuesday
.
Just a monster effort to lead the way.
Backlund scored into the empty net with two-and-a-half minutes left to round out the scoring.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Shots: CGY 27 - MIN 33
Powerplay: CGY 2-3 - MIN 0-4
Hits: CGY 34 - MIN 47
Faceoffs: CGY 53% - MIN 48%
\Scoring chances: CGY 16 - MIN 25
\High-danger scoring chances: CGY 2 - MIN 10
\Courtesy of Natural Stat Trick (5-on-5)*

ONE-TIMERS:

The Flames are now 8-2-2 against the Central Division this season and 15-8-3 against Western Conference opponents. … This was the first of only four road games in the month of March. The Flames are now 17-10-2 away from the Scotiabank Saddledome. … Former Flames goalie Cam Talbot manned the paint for the Wild tonight. The 34-year-old represented his team at the NHL All-Star Game this year, and entered the night with a .910 save percentage and a 2.94 goals-against average. Talbot spent one year with the Flames, posting a 12-10-1 record, before starting all 10 playoff games in the NHL's Return to Play Bubble. The Caledonia, Ont. native had two shutouts and a .924 save percentage that summer.

YOUR THREE STARS:

THEY SAID IT:

DARRYL SUTTER ON HOW THE GAME PLAYED OUT:
"Scored that powerplay goal early and it was really important to get the lead. This building's a really hard building to play in and we came out hard, bang guys around, so it was really important to score that first goal on the powerplay."
ON TIMELY GOALS:
"I think both those powerplay goals (were important). They were at real pivotal times. One was early in the game and one's real early in the period, too. Those are big goals. We talked about needing a big game out of Lindy's line and we scored big goals for us."
ELIAS LINDHOLM ON SWEEPING HOME-AND-HOME SET:
"Obviously, the 7-1 game, I don't know. It was a tough one. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. But it's good that our team find ways to re-group and (we) beat a good team twice. We're a good team, so it's fun."

ANDREW MANGIAPANE ON THE PP:
"I think it was a good job by our powerplay there to get the early one. That was a big goal for us. That was our mentality going into the game - 'Let's get that first goal' - and the powerplay did that and executed. Timely goals are good and they meant a lot in this game."

THE LINEUP:

Forwards:
Johnny Gaudreau - Elias Lindholm - Matthew Tkachuk
Andrew Mangiapane - Mikael Backlund - Blake Coleman
Milan Lucic - Sean Monahan - Tyler Toffoli
Trevor Lewis - Brad Richardson - Brett Ritchie
Defence:
Oliver Kylington - Chris Tanev
Noah Hanifin - Rasmus Andersson
Nikita Zadorov - Erik Gudbranson

Goaltenders
Jacob Markstrom - Starter
Dan Vladar

UP NEXT:

The Flames are back home for one as they host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday at 7 p.m. MT. You can watch it live on Sportsnet West, or listen on Sportsnet 960 THE FAN with Derek Wills and Peter Loubardias.