Filip Gustavsson earned a shutout but not the win.
Wild lose to Flames in shootout after Jared Spurgeon's overtime score disallowed
Video review disallowed Jared Spurgeon's apparent game-ender and then Calgary came back to win a shootout that extended into an extra shot.
"That's the first," he said.
After the goaltender doused the Flames last weekend, Gustavsson almost extinguished them again in the rematch before Calgary prevailed 1-0 in a shootout on Tuesday in front of 18,998 at Xcel Energy Center to snap the Wild's win streak at four games.
Still, they're on a season-high 10-game point streak (8-0-2) that's tied for the third-longest in franchise history. The 21 points the Wild have banked since Feb. 11 by going 9-1-3 are the most in the league.
"It's disappointing to go that far and not come away with two [points] and give a team like that a little boost," Marcus Foligno said.
The Wild did score in overtime, captain Jared Spurgeon pouncing on the rebound from a Ryan Hartman shot during the extra session. But the NHL overturned the goal once video review determined Spurgeon was offside before his shot.
"It's like getting a birthday cake and someone blowing out your candles," said Foligno, who disagreed with the ruling.
As for Wild coach Dean Evason, he agreed the play was offside.
"[Spurgeon] definitely released [the puck] before it got over the blue line by an inch," Evason explained. "So, yeah, hard to argue with that."
Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov were denied in the shootout, but consecutive tallies from Frederick Gaudreau and Calgary's Nazem Kadri sent the showdown to a fourth round. There, Matt Boldy went wide before the Flames' Tyler Toffoli capitalized to finally resolve the stalemate.
Gustavsson stopped 26 shots after denying 31 tries from Calgary on Saturday in a 3-0 dusting to become the sixth Wild netminder to record back-to-back shutouts, his second and third this season and for his NHL career.
Only one Wild goalie has ever recorded three straight shutouts: Devan Dubnyk accomplished the feat on Oct. 25-29, 2016, and Nov. 9-14, 2017.
"These games are real fun," Gustavsson said. "It's very close games and there's lots of opportunities back and forth."
Going back to a 2-1 shootout win over the New York Islanders on Feb. 28, the first-year Wild goalie has gone 175 minutes, 45 seconds without giving up a goal for the third-longest shutout streak in Wild history.
He's 6-0-3 in his last nine starts, a career-best point streak, and this was the 21st time in 28 starts this season he's limited the other team to two goals or less.
Overall, Gustavsson ranks second in the league with a 1.91 goals-against average and a .935 save percentage among goalies who've played at least 21 games.
"He's solid back there," Spurgeon said. "Every save he's making he's either putting the rebounds somewhere easy for us to defend or he's swallowing them up, and you can see the confidence.
"He made some huge saves for us to keep it a tie game."
Both teams went a combined 0-for-8 on the power play, with the Wild blanking on five opportunities.
Many of their best looks came in the third period when they outshot the Flames 16-6.
Hartman had a backhander during a breakaway sail wide in the third.
Seconds later, Calgary goalie Jacob Markstrom stopped Spurgeon before Ryan Reaves almost nixed the tie when he was alone in front.
Add in a game-high six shots from Kaprizov, the Wild's leading scorer, and the team certainly had enough chances to end up with the shutout and the victory.
"Their goalie played good," Evason said of Markstrom, who racked up 40 saves. "They play sound defensively, but we still had lots of good looks. We did a lot of really good things in this hockey game."
The NHL’s coaching carousel revealed itself again, a fight reminded us what has changed, and of course there was unpredictable matter involving a goalie.