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After a third straight defeat and a third straight poor performance on Sunday, Vancouver Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo said his playoff-bound team needed better efforts from every player, himself included.

On Tuesday, Luongo delivered.

Few teammates heeded his message, but the Canucks goaltender was spectacular against the Calgary Flames, making a season-best 46 saves as Vancouver stayed alive in the Northwest Division title hunt with a 4-1 victory. The Canucks only had 25 shots on Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff, and played one of their loosest defensive games of the season.

All of it led Luongo to joke that it reminded him of his time in Florida, where he played for the outgunned Panthers.

"That was vintage Panther days right there," Luongo said of the Sunbelt franchise that often asked him to win games singlehandedly.

Both Calgary and Vancouver have already clinched NHL postseason berths, and they are now tied with 96 points atop the division (the Flames technically hold first place courtesy of having more wins, 45 to 43). They are fighting for the third seed in the Western Conference playoffs, and home-ice advantage in the first round, with the loser likely slipping to fifth position and the probable privilege of beginning the postseason in Chicago.

The Blackhawks beat the Nashville Predators 4-2 on Tuesday, moving to 99 points and tightening their hold on home-ice advantage. Chicago has three more games this week, and another win would clinch fourth place.

For the Flames, the division should have been won by now. They led Vancouver by 13 points on Jan. 30, and have allowed their Canadian rivals to rejoin the race by playing .500 hockey over the last two months.

On Tuesday, they clearly outplayed the home team, and deserved a better result.

The imbalance started from the opening faceoff, as Mike Cammalleri and Todd Bertuzzi both had good chances. Ten minutes in, Calgary had 17 shots to Vancouver's three, and there was a nervous vibe inside GM Place.

Later, the Flames had — and squandered — a two-man advantage. They finished 0 for 6 on the power play, and are now 0 for 36 with the man advantage over their last eight games.

"Luongo was the difference," Flames coach Mike Keenan said. "We had a number of chances to get involved in the game offensively and he just stymied us. He was putting on a goaltending clinic tonight."

For Luongo, the formula was simple, even if the execution was difficult.

Those early chances got him into the game and from there, he followed with a litany of world-class saves. Calgary also helped his cause, hitting numerous posts and missing several empty nets.

"You feel it right away, as soon as the game starts," Luongo said about being on top of his game. "You make three or four saves in the first few minutes and you feel like you're seeing the puck well and it's hitting you.

"Unfortunately, there were not enough days like that during the year. It'd be nice to have a few more of those."

Indeed.

The Canucks had surrendered 14 goals in their three previous games, all defeats, and Luongo has not had his best season. From time to time, he has looked ordinary, and he suffered a groin injury that forced him to miss 24 games.

This game, however, was missing little. Built up as a playoff game (just one week early), it also might have been the final tete-a-tete between two old warriors. Both figured prominently.

Mattias Ohlund and Jarome Iginla have been involved in the Canucks-Flames rivalry for more than a decade, and have often matched up against each other on the ice. Ohlund, a defenceman in his 11th season with the Canucks, and Iginla, a 12-year forward and Calgary's captain, are the standardbearers for their respective teams, and both wear letters.

On Tuesday, Ohlund went one better than his old rival. After Iginla scored to knot the score 1-1 in the second period, Ohlund replied. He scored just 22 seconds later to shift momentum back to the home team, and he tallied again in the third period to make it 3-1.

After the first goal, his first since Feb. 12, the even-keeled Swede turned to the Canucks bench with a blank expression. He later explained that the team has been begging him to shoot the puck more often. The encouragement had become so widespread that even trainer Mike Burnstein was hollering at him to shoot the puck.

"I was trying to get his attention," said Ohlund, who can become an unrestricted free agent this summer and is not expected back in Vancouver. "Sometimes, he's coaching, too. He can do it all."

While Luongo played perhaps his best game of the season, Kiprusoff was beatable. Vancouver's Rick Rypien, who missed 70 games this season because of a sports hernia and an undisclosed personal matter, solved him in the first period, and Henrik Sedin scored late in the third.

The Canucks conclude their season with games against non-playoff teams on Thursday, when they finish their home schedule against the Los Angeles Kings, and on Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche in Denver. The Flames renew the Battle of Alberta with the now-eliminated Edmonton Oilers. The clubs play Friday and Saturday.