Markstrom paces Flames to home-and-home sweep of Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. --Jacob Markstrom made 32 saves for the Calgary Flames, who completed a home-and-home sweep of the Minnesota Wild with a 5-1 win at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday.

Markstrom made 22 saves for Calgary, which won 7-3 on Saturday.
"A good competitive game there," Calgary forward Andrew Mangiapane said. "... We were digging in the corner for a while. ... Good to get that one. A good solid effort by our whole team there."
Five players each had a goal and an assist for the Flames (32-14-6), who have won 12 of their past 13 games. Their 10-game winning streak ended in a 7-1 loss at the Vancouver Canucks on Feb. 24.

Marcus Foligno scored, and Cam Talbot made 22 saves for the Wild (31-17-3), who have lost four in a row.
"When you go through things like this, I think it's not always easy to get out of it, and you're going to get slapped in the mouth before moving on," Foligno said. "So yeah, you can preach all you want. We were way better than we were in Calgary, but we still got to be better, so we understand that.
"Thirty-some games we've been great. And we have to understand that this is gut check time. This is where moving into playoff spots matters, and everyone's got to just bring their working boots."
Matthew Tkachuk gave the Flames a 1-0 lead on the power play at 1:12 of the first period when the puck deflected to him in the right circle.
"Scored that power-play goal early and it was really important to get the lead," Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. "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 power play."

Mangiapane scored his team-leading 28th goal to increase the lead 2-0 at 12:42, finding a loose puck in front of the crease.
It was Mangiapane's third straight game with a goal. He has scored 21 goals on the road, one behind Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl for the most in the NHL.
Foligno cut it to 2-1 at 8:32 of the second period with a one-timer off a backhand pass from Kirill Kaprizov.
Elias Lindholm scored 21 seconds later for a 3-1 lead off a one-timer on a feed from Tkachuk at 8:53.

Tyler Toffoli pushed the lead to 4-1 with a power-play goal 33 seconds into the third period. Johnny Gaudreau, who had two assists, centered a pass to a wide-open Toffoli at the goalmouth for the tap in.
"You can't go in the room and go, 'Guys, please score,'" Wild coach Dean Evason said. "No, you need to compete, you need to compete your butts off and get chances and they'll start going in.
"We did everything but score. … Our power play [stunk], and our goalscoring [stunk]. Everything else was great. Our physicality was great, our commitment was great, our chances, we outchanced them. Everything was great but we didn't score goals. We've taken a step in the right direction, we believe. We're still [angry] that we didn't win, but we took a step in the right direction, but not backwards tonight."
Mikael Backlund scored into an empty net at 17:30 for the 5-1 final.
"We were ready, and we were hungry to get a win here," Lindholm said. "We were prepared, had a good morning skate. ... Had some momentum goals there. ... Overall, a solid game."
NOTES: Tkachuk has scored five points (three goals, two assists) in his past two games. … Wild forward Kevin Fiala had his four-game point streak end (seven points: three goals, four assists). … Kaprizov became the first player in Wild history to have 40 assists in 50 games or fewer. Mikko Koivu had 40 in 61 games in 2008-09 and 2009-10). … Toffoli has scored seven points (five goals, two assists) in seven games since being acquired by the Flames in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens. … Jared Spurgeon played his 743rd game to tie Nick Schultz for the most by a Wild defenseman in history. … Minnesota had 48 hits, the most in its history. Calgary had 34 hits, led by defenseman Erik Gudbranson, who had nine. … The Flames went 2-for-3 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.