Perfect Homestand!

The fans who braved Snowmageddon to come to the Scotiabank Saddledome Saturday got treated to a heckuva show.

The visiting Minnesota Wild rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period but Rasmus Andersson scored the winner in the shootout as the Flames prevailed 4-3 in a matinee NextGen/2000s themed tilt.

Kevin Rooney and Martin Pospisil scored their second goals of the season and Yegor Sharangovich scored his second in as many games as the Flames went 2-for-2 on the powerplay in the outing.

With the victory, the Flames went a perfect 4-for-4 on this homestand and improved to 12-6-3 on the season.

The tilt was a battle between one of the league’s best home teams (the Flames at 8-3-0) and the NHL’s best road squad (the Wild at 9-1-2).

Dan Vladar made 20 stops against Minnesota – who were without their top scorer, injured Kirill Kaprizov, who was sitting tied atop the league points table.

Both teams had some good looks in OT but nothing was solved.

Justin Kirkland scored on his signature move in the 1-on-1 battle on Calgary’s third shot, while Frederick Gaudreau tallied on Minny’s first attempt.

Matt Coronato and Marco Rossi were both stopped on their fourth-shot attempts, with Andersson wiring one five-hole on Filip Gustavsson in the fifth round to put Calgary up and then Ryan Hartman missed the net to seal the deal

The teams exchanged goals in the opening stanza.

The Flames struck first when Rooney scored with a textbook tip past Gustavsson. He had set up shop on the doorstep battling with Joel Eriksson Ek for position, getting his stick on a point blast from Daniil Miromanov and redirecting it shortside at the 15-minute mark.

A turnover in the neutral zone led to Minnesota tying things up 1:03 later, Vladar partially blocking the cross-ice one-timer from Marcus Johannson on a 2-on-1, but the puck going off him into the net.

Prior to Rooney’s tally, Jonathan Huberdeau had the best chance of the period when he gathered a loose puck and walked in on Gustavsson, trying to wrap it around his outstretched left pad but was foiled by the blade of the 'tenders skate.

Speaking of Huberdeau, he drove hard to the net early in the second and got a piece of a pass from Blake Coleman but was right on top of Gustavsson by that point and he made the stop.

Kirkland was hit from behind into the boards behind his net and there was no penalty call, but he got up and skated the length of the ice and set up Rooney on a 2-on-1 who got off a nice backhand shot that was just shy of making it over Gustavsson's pad and under his arm.

With 2:10 left in the second the Flames got their first powerplay of the game and converted with 30.3 seconds to go, Nazem Kadri with a dandy one-touch pass to Pospisil who was parked atop the blue paint behind Gustavsson and tapped it in.

Calgary went to the powerplay less than two minutes into the third and with three ticks left in the man-up, made good when Sharangovich set up in the high slot and one-timed a pass from Connor Zary that beat Gustavsson high and clean at 3:53.

Brock Faber scored a powerplay marker with just under four minutes to play and then Rossi tied it up with 34 seconds to play to force OT.

The Lineup:

FORWARDS

Jonathan Huberdeau - Connor Zary - Blake Coleman

Martin Pospisil - Nazem Kadri - Andrei Kuzmenko

Yegor Sharangovich - Mikael Backlund - Matt Coronato

Ryan Lomberg - Kevin Rooney - Justin Kirkland

DEFENCE

Kevin Bahl - Rasmus Andersson

MacKenzie Weegar - Daniil Miromanov

Joel Hanley - Brayden Pachal

GOALTENDER

Dan Vladar (starter)

Dustin Wolf

The Numbers Game:

Shots: CGY 31, MIN 23

Powerplay: CGY 2-2, MIN 1-3

Faceoffs: CGY 35.4%, MIN 64.6%

Blocked Shots: CGY 18, MIN 16

Hits: CGY 16, MIN 13

Takeaways: CGY 5, MIN 4

*5-on-5 Scoring Chances: CGY 21, MIN 18

*5-on-5 High-Danger Scoring Chances: CGY 8, MIN 7

*Courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

They Said It:

Up Next:

The Flames hit the road for a four-game trip that starts in Ottawa against the Senators on Monday night at 5:30 p.m. MT.