The four goals represents an offensive breakout for the Flames, 2-1 winners in their past two home dates - against Washington and Pittsburgh. Not since dusting off the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 at Rogers Place on Oct. 14 had they scored as many, eight starts ago.
"The quality of our chances the last few games has been good,'' said captain Mark Giordano, who's felt for a while that an outburst was on the way. "We're not just getting a lot of shots.
"Tonight we had some breakaways, some really quality looks. They did, too. But you just feel when you're getting those looks game-in and game-out it's going to go.
"I thought they were better than us though the neutral zone. We'll clean that up. But other than that, we had a good game."
No coincidence that the No.-1 line of Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Micheal Ferland established and maintained the tempo, each man collecting two points.
Ferland, in particular, enjoyed a monster evening.
Stonewalled by Kinkaid on a penalty shot try 13:15 into the first period, he continued to solider industriously on, waiting that extra beat off the half-wall for Monahan to slide into open territory and count his team-topping eighth goal of the season, then showing a Charmin-soft set of mitts to score into the short side, the set-up courtesy the sublime Gaudreau.
"I think playing with Johnny and Monny I try to be around the net a lot,'' said Ferland. "They're skilled guys. We're getting some good bounces and it feels good to be rewarded."
After a couple of starts and stops patrolling the right flank on that unit, Ferland seems to be settling in quite nicely.