It’s November! The Calgary Flames (7-5-1, 15 points) kick the month off with a big game against a Western Conference foe, the Colorado Avalanche (7-3-2, 16 points). After three consecutive strong outings, can the Flames keep things rolling along?
The action starts at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.
The Flames
Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Gaudreau – Monahan – Lindholm
Tkachuk – Backlund – Frolik
Bennett – Jankowski – Neal
Hathaway – Ryan – Dube
Giordano – Brodie
Hanifin – Hamonic
Valimaki – Andersson
Mike Smith starts for the Flames, backed up by David Rittich. The projected scratches are Dalton Prout (again), Michael Stone and Austin Czarnik. (It’s Prout’s 13th healthy scratch this season, easily leading the team.)
The Flames have played three good games in a row and have points in three straight games (2-0-1). The keys tonight? More of the same. They’ll need a better start than they got in Buffalo, as Rittich had to be very sharp early, and ideally their special teams units will step up and help out what’s been a pretty stingy even strength club lately.
The Avalanche
Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Landeskog – MacKinnon – Rantanen
Kerfoot – Kamenev – Wilson
Nieto – Soderberg – Calvert
Dano – Dries – Greer
Girard – Johnson
Cole – Barrie
Zadorov – Nemeth
Semyon Varlamov starts for Colorado, backed up by Philip Grubauer. Their scratches are Mark Barberio and Gabriel Bourque.
The Avalanche are playing their first game since Saturday; they’ve had four days off after playing three games in their previous four evenings. They lost two of those three games, so they’re looking to return to form. They’re short a few key bodies, but they’re still young, fast and talented.
The Numbers
| CGY | COL | |
| Wins | 7 | 7 |
| Points | 15 | 16 |
| Corsi Close | 53.2% | 49.7% |
| Power Play | 15.1% | 23.9% |
| Penalty Kill | 72.7% | 88.5% |
Injury Report
The Flames are healthy.
The Avalanche are without JT Compher, Tyson Jost and Sven Andrighetto, who are all on the injured reserve right now.
History Lesson
This is the second game between Calgary and Colorado this season. The Flames beat them in Denver in October after giving up two goals in the first two and a half minutes. It was that game where Gaudreau scored in overtime and Rittich was celebrating before he even scored. They’ll play once more in Calgary in January.
Know Thy Enemy
Your Avalanche Twitter follows for tonight:
Jankowski = Joe Colborne but worse. Send him back to Stockton and call up Mangiapane.
Yep. Future doesn’t look bright for Jankowski. Bad call on the hit – clean hit and Jankowski had his head down.
Charging occurs prior to the hit.
Has nothing to do with the actual contact.
So on July 1 the Flames go out and sign Czarnik for 1.25 million. It seems that they are among 20 teams that are interested. After a few games it is obvious why Boston was willing to let him go and that a team as soft as the Flames they cannot afford him in the lineup.
So rather than get out and find one of those 20 teams willing to give up an asset for him he eats popcorn.
Also it is pretty obvious that Stone is the 7th defenseman, if one of the top 6 goes down with an injury is Prout good enough to fill in or do they need to keep Stone around. How about one of the guys down in Stockton could they fill in and make Stone surplus?
There could be real value coming back for a combination of Czarnik and Stone.
There could be real value, if we found someone who wants that package for 3.75M. My own thoughts are that the perceived value of the players is greatly diminished by their contracts, and at this point, the value of the depth they provide (another center, NHL defense depth that we can’t replace) is more valuable than the return they’d get. I think they’d end up taking back something that’s also a bit over priced, even if they found the right partner.
Czarniks not the problem, gives some depth and is young with obvious hidden talent, he may or may not become something. Now Ryan on the other hand is 31 and useless and is making 3 plus! What was BT thinking and how smart is our new coach pushing to bring him in? The coach thinking this guy is useful and worth 3 plus scares me more than wasting 10 mill over 3 years on our new Stajan
There’s a reason that there is almost no trades between the start of the season until a week before the trade deadline (unless its for pending RFAs). No GMs want to make moves because they are smart enough to know to evaluate their own teams and the changing landscape of the league.
Giving up on Czarnik 13 games into the season is laughable. Trading away a serviceable NHL defenceman when the team is one injury away from a questionable 3rd pairing is laughable. Granted all bets are off in February but I imagine its going to take some Garth Snow level GMing to do what you’re suggesting
Czarnik was an obvious AHLer in the preseason. At 25 years old he has played 67 games with goals and hits (0.34 per game)
People love to complain about Sean Monahan playing soft and he is 24 years old 406 games 143 goals and 188 hits (0.46 per game)
Admittedly Johnny Gaudreau has a lower hit per game rate than Czarnik but not only does he score but he sets up goals and can dominate a game. Also Johnny has what it takes to body Dustin Byfuglien into the boards and take the puck, you are not going to find Czarnik within 20 feet of Byfuglien.
The only hope is to deal Czarnik to a team that can afford a fast guy who will not get involve physically.
This is 2018. Hits dont win teams games. They’re nice and a needed part of the game, but hits dont win games. Speed win games. Skill win games.
Edmonton has Lucic, Kassian, Brodziak, Nurse. Would you want EDM tough hitting roster over the Flames? Take McDavid out, who is the fastest and most skilled guy in the league and you have a team who can lead the team in hits per game… and they’d be last in the entire league. Hits per game as a stat is probably worse than the +/-
“Johnny has what it takes to body Byfuglein into the boards…” This statement alone should render your entire comment moot.
“Monahan is soft” I’d rather him hit literally no one and keep those hands healthy and score 14pts in 13 games.
We all knew what Czarnik was: a calculated, safe risk. 20/30 GMs wouldve taken that….
You can have your speed and skill and play 23 Czarniks. I will take skill and grit with 23 Tkachuks hits in games. I win the cup every time.
Calculated risk, yes. Not even a bad signing for the money. A fit in Calgary, I don’t think so.
Should say 160 hits in 156 games
Agreed. I had a good laugh thinking about Gaudreau mistaking big buff off the puck!
everyone would like 23 Tkachuk’s. Problem is most teams are lucky to have one. To speculate about 23 is a moot point. Czarnik has only played 6 games-too small a sample to write him off. Provides good depth.
Paging Mikael Backlund:
Time to start doing something on the scoresheet there moneypants. Gotta earn that cake and stop settling for your easy defense.
I love Backs’ defensive game. But he isn’t making 6 mil to just to that.
He’s settling for what he’s exceptional at. Not uncommon. But this team needs a second-line center that puts up more than 10 goals a year at his pay rate.
Backlund shuts down the top lines night after night, he is a stud, not sure what you talking about
I personally would be fine with him simply scoring more than the other team while he’s on the ice, and playing against the top lines. In terms of scoring, I’d really like to see more from our bottom lines. I remember starting the season thinking that the bottom lines are incredibly deep and should make a lot of noise this year. Well, so far that hasn’t happened.
First off, he makes $5.3MM not $6MM. And maybe you need to adjust your expectations of what a center in that salary range puts up points wise. His closest comparable is Adam Henrique who signed for $5.8MM about 6 months after Backlund, he put up 36 points last year. Next closest Turris making $6MM signed a few months before Backs, he put up 42 points last year, another comparable would be Brian Little, signed his deal about 6 months before Backs, making $5.3MM, he put 43 points last year. Backlund’s offense seems to be right at fair market value, for the price we are paying, and that’s even before you start considering the defensive side of his game.
Thanks purple hazze (dope name btw). Like hello everyone, inflation. This is the market for a Backlund type player. Don’t hate the player hate the game, etc etc.
Besides, Backlund is a fantastic playmaker. If he has someone on his line who can finish he will get all them apples.
Yes wasting Tkachuk if all you want is a shutdown line. The love for Backlund and the paycheck I will never understand.
Everyone has to admit Backlund has been playing a very soft game this year, new wifey doesn’t want his pretty face to get messed up!
Would be fantastic if the Backs line picked up a goal or two while shutting down the best line in the NHL.
play incredibly well shutting down one of these elite lines, and maybe even outscore them, but then will contribute zero offense in the other 60 games he plays
Last time they faced off against the best line in the league they outscored them 3 to 2.
I’d settle for him to shut down the best line in hockey atm. That’ll do.
Yep, an absence of those three from the score sheet is enough impact for me tonight. Goals-for would be a nice added bonus on top of that.
The problem with Backs is that he will often play incredibly well shutting down one of these elite lines, and maybe even outscore them, but then will contribute zero offense in the other 60 games he plays.
Tkachuk looked off last game….but of course he sucks it up and scores the tieing goal. There does not appear to be a goal scorer on the 3M line. Backlund has 1 goal, Frolik has 5 goals but 3 are EN, and Tkachuk is a master at deflecting pucks for goals but he seems to get most of his points playing with an extra man. There are not a lot of holes in his game but he could work on getting his shot off quicker.
This is a terrible defence! Most overrated D again!
did we just turn r best draft pick into a 3rd line goon ?
Hanafins play has slowly gotten worse.
The last few years the Flames have been struggling to catch up to the pack and lingering around the edge of the playoffs. I think that Peters has decided that he is going to overplay his top two lines early in the season, get well into the playoff picture and then look for some team balance. Every night all the lines get a chance to show up but if anyone stumbles it is to the blender heavy on the top 6. Hopefully they get a few easy games where everybody can establish themselves.
Smith better give head to every flames player because they just saved his as s
Smith doing his best to help the Flames lose.