But that's only part of the story. Gaudreau, 25, and Monahan, 24, are finding Lindholm in part because of their vision and skill, but also because Lindholm is finding the right areas on the ice. He's getting open. He's seemingly always available, always in the right position.
Case in point, his second goal in a 7-4 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 6. It was on the power play. The Canucks were focused on Gaudreau in the left circle. Lindholm quietly hung in the right circle. Gaudreau found him with a seam pass. Lindholm scored with that same wrist shot that beat Varlamov a week later.
"I knew from the beginning that the puck can come to me at any moment, that they'll find me through backdoors and stuff like that," Lindholm said. "It's in the back of my head that I can go to different spots and they will find me."
Gaudreau said playing with Lindholm reminds him of playing with Hudler because of the skill, the smarts, and the quick chemistry he and Monahan have developed with him.
"We're all three pretty young guys and we all have four, five or six years left on our contracts," Gaudreau said. "Hopefully we keep building this chemistry and we're playing together for a long time."
It wasn't clear at first if Lindholm would get the opportunity to play with Monahan and Gaudreau. James Neal signed a five-year, $28.75 million contract with the Flames on July 2 and the instant analysis suggested he would be on their line.
Peters, though, has used Lindholm in that spot from the start of training camp in China.
At first, he said it was because of face-offs, with Monahan coming off wrist surgery in the offseason and the Flames wanting to make sure he took them mostly on his strong side (left).
Now it's because of face-offs -- Monahan and Lindholm have combined to win 58.7 percent (115 of 196) -- and the offense they're generating after the draw.
"There's some chemistry amongst those three," Peters said. "[Lindholm] is a real good responsible player and it's good to see him getting rewarded."