Everything pointed to the Calgary Flames extending their season-high winning streak to six games Wednesday night. But Eric Belanger would have nothing of it.

Belanger tallied twice as the Minnesota Wild snuffed the Flames 4-1, ending Calgary's recent run of success and halting a four-game losing skid of their own.

"We didn't get the wins [during the streak], but there were some positives," Belanger said. "You look at the standings and you don't move up, but you do some good things and you're going to get rewarded sooner or later."

That it was Belanger's 600th NHL game simply made it all the more rewarding.

"We played pretty good," he said.

The Flames had given up just one goal in each of their previous four games and in five of six, but they have dropped their last three meetings with the Wild.

"We just didn't have a push back tonight," Flames head coach Brent Sutter said. "It gets back to the energy level and how the mental and physical part of our game wasn't there."

Kyle Brodziak contributed a goal and an assist for the Wild (21-20-3), including a gorgeous pass that Cal Clutterbuck converted to close out the scoring with 8:21 remaining.

"This is the closest we have been to putting our whole game together like we know we can," said Brodziak, who snapped a personal 28-game scoring drought.

"All four lines were going and all six defencemen were playing well," Wild rookie head coach Todd Richards explained. "The third period was pretty easy, just rolling in the lines."

Olli Jokinen opened the scoring 1:34 into the contest for the Flames (25-13-5), burying a rebound for his ninth goal of the season after Niklas Backstrom had kicked aside Nigel Dawes' slapshot from the top of the faceoff circle.

Until scoring in each of the past two games, Jokinen, who, like netminder Miikka Kiprusoff will represent Finland at the upcoming Olympics, hadn't had a goal since Dec. 9 — a stretch of 11 games.

Belanger was stationed in the high slot when he deflected in Marek Zidlicky's point shot for the tying goal, a power-play marker at 5:47 of the first period.

It remained deadlocked until Brodziak knocked Flames defenceman Mark Giordano off the puck and fed it behind the net to Guillaume Latendresse, who sent him a return pass that he got just enough blade on to flutter over Kiprusoff's left shoulder 4:38 into the second.

"He had a little bit of backspin on it," Richards said of Brodziak's weak shot.

'It was tough sledding'

Belanger made it 3-1 less than seven minutes later, collecting the puck on a kick pass from Owen Nolan and beating Kiprusoff with a rising backhander for his second goal of the game and 11th overall.

Backstrom held firm the rest of the way, finishing with 25 saves and easing the frustration of having permitted four goals in each of his previous two starts — both losses on home ice.

Not that the Flames threatened much.

Calgary is 5-1-0 over its last six games, but has scored just 15 goals in that span.

"Once they scored and got a couple behind Kipper, it was tough sledding for the rest of the game," Flames forward Jason Jaffray said.

"We just weren't quite on top of our game," Flames defenceman Robyn Regehr admitted. "There were passes that we could have been a lot better with.

"There were opportunities that we normally take advantage of, or make, that we didn't do, all sorts of stuff like that, and it just leads to giving the other team momentum."

With files from The Canadian Press