CALGARY — Devan Dubnyk made 35 saves as the Minnesota Wild beat Calgary 4-2 on Saturday night as the Flames retired Jarome Iginla’s number.
Matt Read gave the Wild the lead for good in the third period by deflecting a puck off the skate of Calgary’s Mark Jankowski and past goaltender Mike Smith.
Eric Staal, Ryan Suter and Ryan Donato also scored for Minnesota (32-27-6), which won its fifth straight.
Sean Monahan and Travis Hamonic scored for Calgary (41-17-7), which had its seven-game winning streak snapped.
The Flames raised Iginla’s No. 12 to the rafters in a nearly hour-long pre-game ceremony.
Former Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla speaks at his ceremony to retire his jersey. (Candice Ward-USA TODAY Sports)
The Wild remain in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, one point back of Dallas and one point up on Arizona. Calgary leads San Jose by five points atop the Pacific Division.
The start time was pushed back by 10 minutes for Iginla’s ceremony. He retired last summer after 20 NHL seasons, 16 of which with the Flames. The longtime Calgary captain is the franchise leader in games (1,219), goals (525), and points (1,095).
A much sought after ticket in Calgary since the jersey retirement was announced, the red-clad patrons in a Saddledome decorated for the night witnessed an emotional tribute that included a stirring video narrated by Lanny McDonald, who along with Mike Vernon are the other two players with their numbers retired.
Dubnyk was the story for Minnesota, who were outshot 37-23. Making his sixth start in a row, Dubnyk was especially sharp in the opening 40 minutes when he was peppered with 28 shots, but stopped all but one. He improves to 26-21-5.
Making his seventh start in the last nine, Smith had 19 stops to fall to 19-12-2 and have his win streak snapped at five.
Suter’s goal made it 3-1 at 11:07. After Hamonic cut the deficit to one at 14:29, Donato’s long shot slipped through Smith at 18:18 to put the game away.
Donato (2-5-7) and Staal (2-5-6) both extended their point streaks to five games.
Down 1-0 after the first period, Calgary got back to even on the only goal of the second.
Johnny Gaudreau found Monahan in front and he steered in the pass for his 30th goal. It’s the third time reaching 30 goals for the 24-year-old in his sixth NHL season.
Minnesota opened the scoring at 3:17 when Staal was left all alone in the slot and he one-timed a pass from Jason Zucker.
The Flames thought they had tied it a couple minutes later when Sam Bennett cut hard to the net off the wing and had Austin Czarnik bang in his rebound. However, Bruce Boudreau challenged it for goaltender interference and upon review, the call was reversed.
Bennett caught Dubnyk’s pad with his skate and knocked the goaltender off balance.
Notes: Zach Parise (foot) didn’t play for Minnesota… The Wild’s opening goal ended a stretch of 430:41 for Calgary in which they had not trailed. The last time the Flames had faced a deficit was on Feb. 14… Oliver Kylington (lower body) missed his third game.
Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press
