Despite being the NHL career leader in goals against Minnesota Wild, Jarome Iginla hadn't scored one in 10 games.
He certainly broke out of his slump in a big way Sunday.
Iginla
recorded his 10th career hat trick — his third against Minnesota — and
Vesa Toskala made 27 saves in his first start since being traded to
Calgary as the Flames beat the Wild 5-2.
Rene
Bourque and Mark Giordano also scored for the Flames, who stayed within
a point of Detroit for the final playoff spot in the NHL Western
Conference.
Iginla hadn't scored a goal against Minnesota since March 22, 2008 — he had a hat trick in that game, too.
"I'd
be lying if I said I was aiming those," said Iginla, who assisted on
last week's Olympic gold medal-winning goal by Sidney Crosby for Canada
against the United States. "I was really just trying to hit them hard,
and fortunately, they came off the right way."
Had empty-netter
He
broke the drought with a slapshot that beat Niklas Backstrom to put the
Flames up 3-1 in the second period. Iginla also scored in the third on
another slapshot during a 5-on-3 power play, and added an empty-net
goal with 1:33 left.
"I don't know if
there's a goalie in the league that would've stopped that one,"
Minnesota's Greg Zanon said of Iginla's second goal.
"He's
got that grit and intangibles of a great hockey leader, and he has an
incredibly high offensive skill level," said Steve Staios, who was
traded to the Flames from Edmonton last week. "It's nice being on this
side of it, that's for sure."
Guillaume
Latendresse scored both goals for the Wild, who entered in 12th place
in the West and dug themselves a bigger hole, with the Flames and
Detroit both winning Sunday.
"Definitely
making it harder," Wild coach Todd Richards said. "But I don't doubt
this team, the players have shown over and over that —dealing with
adversity or bleak circumstances — they have been able to come through.
I'm definitely not counting them out."
Toskala
was traded to Anaheim for J.S. Giguere on Jan. 31, and then to Calgary
for Curtis McElhinney on March 3. He made his first start since Jan.
30, when he was still minding net for Toronto, playing in place of
resting Olympian Miikka Kiprusoff.
He
looked solid in net for his new team, save for the couple of
second-period goals by Latendresse, who has 21 goals in 39 games since
being acquired by the Wild.
"He hasn't
played in a month, new team in the heart of a playoff race against
somebody that is trying to catch us," Iginla said. "There was
definitely pressure on him, but he looked great."
Crowd goes quiet
The
crowd of 18,217 that gave the Wild franchise its 400th consecutive
sellout went quiet early when Bourque tipped in Matt Stajan's slap shot
from the blue line only 19 seconds into the game. It was the quickest
goal against the Wild at home in team history.
"We're already chasing them there, 19 seconds into the game," Richards said.
The
crowd groaned again later in the period when Giordano wristed a shot
from the left circle past Backstrom after a nice feed from Iginla to
make it 2-0.
But Minnesota pulled within a goal twice in the second period on Latendresse's two scores.
The
Wild cut the lead to 2-1 when Latendresse backhanded a pass from Martin
Havlat past Toskala at the 9:53 mark. Then, after Iginla's
second-period goal, Brent Burns's long pass found Latendresse ahead of
all Calgary's defenders on a breakaway.
Latendresse slapped the puck from the left circle to beat Toskala and pull Minnesota to 3-2.