Gaudreau's three-point outing helps Flames to a 4-1 win over Flyers

CALGARY - Johnny Gaudreau scored his 20th goal of the season and added two assists Thursday night to lead the Calgary Flames to an important 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.

After Philadelphia cut Calgary's 2-0 lead in half with nine seconds left in the second period, Gaudreau helped the Flames restore its two-goal cushion 3:09 into the third by neatly setting up Sean Monahan's team-leading 28th goal.

Four minutes later with Calgary on a two-man advantage, Gaudreau was set up perfectly at the side of the net for tap-in by Jiri Hudler to make it 4-1.

Gaudreau's fourth three-point game of the season— against the team he grew up cheering for as a kid, no less— moves the five-foot-nine winger into the NHL rookie scoring lead with 56 points. He's one point up on Nashville's Filip Forsberg.

Dennis Wideman and TJ Brodie also scored for Calgary (39-27-5).

After beginning the night outside of a playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Flames move one ahead of Los Angeles and take over third place in the Pacific Division.

Claude Giroux scored the lone goal for Philadelphia (29-29-15).

With the game scoreless late in the second period and badly in need of a spark, it finally came courtesy of a bad turnover by Flyers defenceman Luke Schenn.

Schenn's errant pass was intercepted at centre ice by Wideman, who worked a give-and-go with Hudler that ended with Wideman sending a wrist shot through the pads of Steve Mason.

The Flames made it 2-0 less than two minutes later.

With the teams playing four skaters aside, Deryk Engelland sent a pass along the blue-line to Brodie, whose wrist shot beat Mason.

After those two goals on consecutive shots, Flyers coach Craig Berube replaced Mason with Ray Emery and it sparked Philadelphia.

With nine seconds left in the period, a terrific individual effort from Jakub Voracek saw him set up Giroux at the side of the net.

Karri Ramo made 26 saves for the Flames to improve to 14-8-1. Mason was tagged with the loss to fall to 14-17-10.

Notes— Vincent Lecavalier was a healthy scratch for Philadelphia as the team dressed seven defencemen... Matt Read is away from the Flyers to be with his wife, who just gave birth to a baby girl... It was the Flyers first loss in Calgary since March 22, 2001. They had won five straight.... Calgary scored first for just the fourth time in their last 17 games.