Gaudreau notches three points, Flames hand struggling Coyotes loss

CALGARY — Johnny Gaudreau scored his 30th goal and added two assists on Friday to lead the Calgary Flames to a 4-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes.

Matthew Tkachuk, with his 30th, Elias Lindholm and Rasmus Andersson also scored for Calgary (39-17-8), which improves to 16-2-2 in their last 20 games at the Saddledome. The six-game homestand continues Saturday with the Edmonton Oilers the visitors.

Michael Carcone and Vladislav Kolyachonok, each with their first NHL goals, replied for Arizona (20-40-4). The Coyotes have lost four straight.

Jacob Markstrom made 16 stops in the win and improved to 30-12-7. He's the first Flames goaltender to win 30 games in a season since Miikka Kiprusoff won 35 games in 2011-12.

Karel Vejmelka had 29 saves for the Coyotes. He falls to 10-25-1.

Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Lindholm (32), and Mangiapane (30) gives the Flames four 30-goal scorers for the first time since 1993-94. It was done that season by Gary Roberts (41), Theoren Fleury (40), Robert Reichel (40), and Joe Nieuwendyk (36).

After a lacklustre opening 20 minutes for both teams, the Flames erupted for three goals in an eight-minute span to begin the second period.

Thirty-three seconds in, Tkachuk was left uncovered at the side of the net and he one-timed Gaudreau's centering pass.

Three minutes later, Arizona took its first penalty of the game and it only took 15 seconds for the league's third-worst penalty kill to surrender a goal.

A beautiful lightning-quick tick-tack-toe passing sequence that started with Gaudreau to Tkachuk was finished off neatly by Lindholm at 3:35. Tkachuk's two-point night gives him a career-high 78 points.

Gaudreau made it 3-0 at 8:14, sprung in on a 2-on-0 by Nikita Zadorov's pass. Gaudreau decided to not to