CALGARY — Mark Giordano's recent offensive success has mirrored the team's improved play after a rocky start to the season.

The Calgary defenceman scored on the power play and added a short-handed goal less than 10 minutes later in the second period as the Flames won 4-1 on Friday night over the Vancouver Canucks.

Down 1-0 after 20 minutes despite outshooting Vancouver 16-5, the Flames kept coming with Giordano tying it 2:34 into the second, after being set-up in the slot by Mikael Backlund. It was the 14th goal on the man advantage in December after Calgary scored only eight times with the extra man in the season's first two months.

"We came in down after the first but it didn't feel like we were down. We were carrying the play," said the Calgary captain. "They caught a really fortunate break on their goal. We stuck with it."

Giordano put the Flames ahead for good at 11:15 when he went to the net and had Michael Frolik's rebound go in off him.

The goals came during a stretch of over 16 minutes where the Canucks went without a shot. The Flames outshot Vancouver 37-14 on the game.

"(Giordano) was fantastic," said Flames coach Glen Gulutzan. "He had a hard assignment. Him and Dougie (Hamilton) played against the Sedin line and I thought they did a great job."

Giordano has four goals in his last nine games after scoring just once in the first 27 games. Going back to Nov. 15 when he was put together with Hamilton, Calgary has gone 13-6-1.

"The effort is always there with Gio. I just see with Gio, like I see in all the players, more comfort in what we're trying to do and the system we're playing," said Gulutzan.

Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk, into an empty net, also scored for Calgary (18-16-2). Backlund added two assists, as did Hamilton and Frolik.

Nikita Tryamkin with his first of the season had the lone goal for Vancouver (14-18-3). The Canucks limp to the break 2-5-1 in their last eight.

"The execution was off. Our battle level was not high enough and as a team we didn't play well enough," said Vancouver centre Henrik Sedin. "And our line needs to be a lot better."

The only goal of the first period came at 11:35 when Tryamkin's shot hit the skate of Flames forward Kris Versteeg and fluttered high in the air, dropping into the net behind an unsuspecting Brian Elliott.

It was the only puck to get past Elliott, who won his second straight after going over seven weeks without a victory.

"It feels great just to get back in there and play some games," said Elliott, who has seen Chad Johnson take over the No. 1 job. "I've seen a lot and I've been around long enough to know that you keep working hard and things turn your way once in a while. They have the last couple games and I'm going to try to keep it going."

Elliott improves to 5-9-1 while Markstrom falls to 7-8-2.

"We didn't have much," said Canucks coach Willie Desjardins, summing up his team's effort. "We were fortunate to get the first one, (Markstrom) played good for us and that's probably the only positive things we had on the night."

Calgary right-winger Troy Brouwer left the game after being hit in the hand on a dump-in by Versteeg late in the first period. He did not return and Gulutzan said after the game the team will take a look at X-rays and determine what to do.

Notes: Four of Calgary's five 2011 draft picks were in the game: Vancouver's Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund and Tyler Wotherspoon and Johnny Gaudreau for the Flames... Wotherspoon was making his season debut after being recalled from the American Hockey League two weeks ago... Tryamkin's two career goals have both come at the Saddledome.