Elias Lindholm scored twice including an empty-netter late in the third period, Dillon Dube had the other, and David Rittich made 26 saves to give the Flames a 3-1 victory on Saturday at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
With the win, the Flames are 3-0-1 in their last four games, improving their overall record to 13-12-4.
"The talk, the main focus from our team over the past few days is that we've gotten seven of the last eight points here," said Milan Lucic, who was instrumental in the win. "We want to get that good feeling again - and how you get that good feeling again is by working hard, playing good defence, and I thought our defensive game was really good tonight.
"Everyone's been through a lot, emotionally, lately here. When you're on the ice, it's like that Happy Gilmore 'Happy Place'-type of thing. You're not really thinking about anything other than when you were a kid playing the game of hockey. When you work hard and get the result, there's no better feeling, so we've got to keep that going."
The Flames, who had a significant territorial edge in the period, finally opened the scoring at 18:56 of the first. Lucic did some nice work on the draw to the right of Marcus Hogberg, tying up the stick of Artem Anisimov and winning it clean on the forehand. The bouncing puck went straight to Anthony Duclair, but he fumbled it in his feet, allowing Dube to pounce, grab the loose puck and make a terrific play - skate to stick - before swatting it home on the backhand.
There was, as you would imagine, some debate in the press box about whether or not Lucic actually won the draw, or if it was Anisimov who got the better of the big man in that instance, but in our estimation, the tie goes to the runner based on the fuzzy definition of 'possession.'
Either way, it was 1-0 Flames - and rightfully so after tilting the ice thanks in large part to the work of their 6-foot-3, 231-lb. pitbull.
