Ryan Kesler scored twice and Pavol Demitra scored the shootout winner Tuesday night as the Vancouver Canucks overcame a late third period deficit to beat the Calgary Flames 4-3.

Despite being thwarted time and time again by Miikka Kiprusoff, Vancouver kept pressing. With goalie Roberto Luongo pulled for an extra attacker they finally drew even on Kevin Bieksa's point shot through a crowd with 51 seconds remaining in the third period.

After a scoreless overtime, Demitra was the only player to score in the shootout, snapping a shot from close in past Kiprusoff.

After misses by Michael Cammalleri and Jarome Iginla, Todd Bertuzzi almost tied the shoot-out on a nifty spin-a-round backhander with Luongo out of position, but the shot went off the goal post. Bertuzzi broke his stick on the ice in frustration.

Calgary had taken a 3-2 lead at 6:52 of the third on Rene Bourque's 20th goal of the season.

Bieksa got caught pinching at the Flames blue-line, enabling Bourque and Iginla to break up the ice on a two on one. Iginla moved the puck forward to Bourque darting down the left wing, and Bourque wired a 30-footer that just squeezed in under Luongo's arm.

The go-ahead goal was immediately preceded by a clutch pair of saves by Kiprusoff, who sprawled to make consecutive stops off Alex Burrows from close range, two of his 40 saves on the night.

Of the numerous superb saves Kiprusoff made, the best came on a Canucks power-play with less than 10 minutes remaining and Vancouver pressing for the tying goal. Seemingly out of position on a Kyle Wellwood shot, Kiprusoff dove all the way across and with the paddle of his stick knocked the puck out of the air, denying what looked like a sure goal.

The sell-out crowd of 19,289 immediately rose to their feet and continued to chant "Kipper, Kipper" as the Jumbotron showed the replay over and over.

Iginla and Daymond Langkow also scored for Calgary (33-18-6). The Flames have picked up points in five straight (3-0-2).

Iginla also added an assist giving him 823 career points (395 goals, 428 assists) and moving him past Al MacInnis (822) into second place on the Flames all-time scoring list. Theoren Fleury (830) sits in top spot.

Kicking off a four-game road trip, Vancouver (28-21-8) improved to 6-1-0 in its last seven and moved to within 10 points of the Northwest Division-leading Flames.

Matching Kiprusoff save-for-save was Luongo, who finished the night with 38 stops as the two teams combined for 84 shots in the thrilling 65 minutes of exciting action.

Calgary outshot the Canucks 4-0 in overtime.

All the scoring in the second period came in the final three minutes.

Giving Vancouver its first lead of the night, Kesler made it 2-1 at 17:05 on his second goal of the night.

Kiprusoff sprawled acrobatically to jab out his stick and deflect Kesler's first shot from the side of the net. However, the rebound bounced straight into the air and Kesler was able to deftly knock it out of mid-air and into the net.

The lead lasted just over a minute before Langkow tied it on a similar goal.

Like Kesler, Langkow was also set up at the side of the net. Unlike Kesler, it took Langkow four clear whacks at the puck before he was finally able to chip it past Luongo.

Calgary took a 1-0 lead on a sequence that started when Canucks defenceman Willie Mitchell mishandled the puck with it sliding right to Bourque at the side boards. Bourque passed the puck down low to Craig Conroy who made a short backhand pass across to Iginla steaming through the slot and Iginla one-timed his 21st goal of the season inside the far goalpost.

Notes: Wellwood's high-sticking penalty in the first period ended a string of 159 games without a penalty for the Vancouver forward. It had been three seasons since Wellwood was last in the penalty box, a minor penalty he took on Apr. 11, 2006 versus Florida... Calgary rookie RW Brandon Prust (broken jaw) has been declared healthy after missing 30 games but he did get back in the line-up as the Flames went with the identical line-up they've used in the past 12 games... Vancouver improves to 9-4-3 versus the Northwest Division.