Lindholm, Huberdeau snap out of slumps, Flames down Canucks

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Elias Lindholm busted out of his offensive dry spell with a three-point performance.

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Jonathan Huberdeau … finally … buried a goal.

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And the Calgary Flames continued to clip along, powering Thursday to a 5-2 home victory over the Vancouver Canucks. The Flames are now 4-1-1 in their past half-dozen dates, an impressive run for a team with its share of distractions and snakebitten stars.

The Canucks rolled into town with the NHL’s top three scorers so far this season — and Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson each added one point to their totals to remain tied for the league lead.

In Calgary, one of the big storylines has been who isn’t producing. Lindholm, who picked up a pair of assists and then fired into an empty net, snapped out of a five-game point drought. Huberdeau, with a close-range roof-job that prompted a roar from the Saddledome crowd, finally emerged from an 11-game goal funk and was also credited with a helper.

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Just the good vibes they needed.

MacKenzie Weegar, Dillon Dube and Noah Hanifin also tickled twine Thursday for the hosts.

Pettersson put the first ink on the scoring summary, finishing off a tic-tac-toe sequence with an uncontested one-timer on the power-play. Miller and Hughes both earned assists, while Flames goalie Jacob Markstrom had barely reacted to a cross-seam feed before the puck wound up in the back of his net. Pettersson, Miller and Hughes are all up to 27 points apiece.

The Flames soon evened things up thanks to a top-shelf beauty from Weegar. He joined the offensive attack, accepted a nifty drop-pass from fourth-line forward A.J. Greer and sizzled a shot under the crossbar.

Dube, shortly after being dumped into the boards by Hughes, crashed the net for a garbage goal. A deflection by Andrew Mangiapane leaked through Casey DeSmith’s gear and was laying in the blue paint before Dube arrived to shove the puck across the line.

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In the final minute of the middle stanza, Hanifin charged toward the crease and chopped the puck past DeSmith.

In Calgary’s previous home-ice outing, Huberdeau was benched for the entire third period. This was much more to his liking. About six minutes into the closing frame, Flames captain Mikael Backlund forced a turnover along the side-wall and Huberdeau capitalized by hoisting a shot over DeSmith’s blocker.

After Nils Hoglander trimmed the deficit, Lindholm drained an empty-netter for his first goal in a 10-game span.

The Flames improved to 6-8-2. The Canucks, wrapping a back-to-back set after Wednesday’s overtime win against the New York Islanders, dropped to 12-4-1.

wgilbertson@postmedia.com  

On X: @WesGilbertson  

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