Canucks lose to Flames, on brink of playoff elimination

CALGARY -- Elias Lindholm scored his 40th goal of the season and had an assist, and the Calgary Flames won 6-3 to push the Vancouver Canucks to the brink of playoff elimination at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday.

The Canucks (38-30-11) have lost three in a row and are six points behind the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators in the Western Conference wild card race with three games left. Vancouver is 30-15-9 since Bruce Boudreau replaced Travis Green as coach on Dec. 5.
They will be eliminated if the Vegas Golden Knights defeat the San Jose Sharks in any fashion on Sunday.
"We pushed from Dec. 5 until now, and I expect us for the next three games to keep pushing again," Boudreau said. "But we know that our ultimate goal is probably not going to be reached."
Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson scored, and Thatcher Demko made 26 saves for the Canucks.
Dillon Dube scored twice, and Dan Vladar made 30 saves for the Flames (49-20-10), who clinched first in the Pacific Division on Thursday and are 9-1-1 in their past 11.
"We want to keep going here and have a good feeling before the playoffs," Lindholm said. "My first year here (in 2018-19) where we clinched early, it felt like we kind of slowed down a little bit before the playoffs started and it's hard to turn it on again just like that. We've got to keep going and keep building our game and just create the good feeling before the playoffs."
Lindholm put Calgary up 1-0 at 2:44 of the second period when he caught a cross-ice pass from Johnny Gaudreau and shot over Demko's glove on the power play.
"It's obviously a good number," Lindholm said. "Coming in, you always want to improve. Thirty has been a goal and a good number to reach and obviously I got that, so just had to keep going."

Dube made it 2-0 at 3:00 when he took a pass from Calle Jarnkrok and beat Demko from the slot, and Hughes cut the lead to 2-1 at 18:46 when he shot by Vladar's blocker after a turnover in Calgary's end.
Conor Garland tied it 2-2 at 5:36 of the third period when he tapped in a cross-crease pass from Tyler Myers, but Brett Ritchie put Calgary up 3-2 just 14 seconds later with a deflection by Demko.
"When we tied it up, I thought, 'Okay, let's get through the next five minutes' and even if it was a game where you take it to overtime, we don't care if they get an extra point or not," Boudreau said. "But they score on the next shift and that sort of let go for the next four, five minutes after that. It was just a real big sock in the head type thing."
Dube scored on a backhand on an odd-man rush to make it 4-2 at 13:33, and Nikita Zadorov made it 5-2 with a point shot by Demko at 13:45.
Dube has six goals in his past six games and 15 on the season.
"I think I just needed to be a lot better for this team going into the final stretch," Dube said. "I think to elevate my game to get ready for playoffs and try to get into that spot. I needed to be a lot better. It's going better of late."

Pettersson scored on a wrist shot at 17:35 to cut it to 5-3 with Demko pulled for the extra attacker.
Gaudreau scored his 39th of the season into an empty net at 18:21 for the 6-3 final.
"We've been doing this all year, so that's what we're going to keep doing," Canucks defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. "There's no quitting in that room. We've showed it so many times this year. Take it one game at a time and see where it takes us."
NOTES: The Flames have 108 points, second in their history behind 1988-89 (117 points). ... Gaudreau has 111 points (39 goals, 72 assists), second in Flames history (Kent Nilsson, 131, 1980-81). ... Hughes tied the Canucks record for points in a season by a defenseman at 63 (Doug Lidster; 1986-87). He also set the Canucks record for assists by a defenseman in a season with 56.