Wild offense, special teams sputter as team fails to rally at Flames

Sarah McLellan, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Oct 23, 2026

Published in Hockey

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CALGARY, Alberta — Penalty trouble forced the Minnesota Wild into another rally, but this time they couldn’t catch up.

A pair of power play goals was enough for the Calgary Flames to hold off the Wild 2-1 on Thursday night at Scotiabank Saddledome in a second straight tough game for the Wild’s special teams.

Not only did the penalty kill surrender all of Calgary’s offense, first-period goals by Aydar Suniev and Joel Farabee, but the power play went 0-for-4.

In the 4-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday at the start of this five-game road trip, the Wild were dinged for three power play goals and didn’t tally any of their own but still managed to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the third period to pick up a point.

Against the Flames, Michael McCarron had the Wild’s lone goal in the third period on a one-timer set up by Nico Sturm.

What made the Wild’s struggles even more baffling was they had two veteran defensemen back in the lineup.

Captain Jared Spurgeon and Olli Maatta returned from their recent injuries, but the Wild were without forward Max Shabanov, who sat out wtih an injury.

Jesper Wallstedt finished with 20 saves, while Calgary’s Devin Cooley had 35 – including a late, game-saving grab against Matt Boldy before ending the game sprawled on his back after a last-second try by the Wild.