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:
That freakin’ Zadorov is a brick wall. He has pasted about three Flames tonight.
Valimaki climbing my favorite flame list rapidly
Valimaki lays down the boom.
Love that shot Vali skating by the bench getting congrats – you can see that it was whatever Rittich did that made him grin.
Looks like Hamilton got us a PPG first line center.
The game is all about speed and skill, hitting doesn’t matter. OK
The Flames don’t have hitting, they dont have toughness. Ok.
Who said hitting doesnt matter??
Somebody called withachance said “This is 2018. Hits dont win teams games”. Valimaki’s hit may not have won the game but it sure caused the 5th goal.
hmm. I seemed to recall the words “hits are a necessary part of hockey, but speed and skill wins games” but sure ok twist my words.
Seems like the Flames have enough toughness without everyone needing to lay out the body. If you every player to be a grinder and lay people out and not care about speed then I suggest you watch the Oilers.
Wowowowowow
OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN
Told yah, we’re saving the best for the 3rd!
Giordano!! 5-4
Yes sir
OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!
I guess we know what the turning point was.
Good work Benny.
Just two huge balls on a pair of skates.
Agreed. Bennett brought this team back to LIFE!
It’s happening!
I can’t believe my eyes. I thought for sure this game was over at 4-1 when I seen Smith still in net to start the 3rd.
I almost turned the game off at that point…so glad I didn’t
Me too
“gio is too old”
“flames dont have hitters”
“Trade neal”
“nothing good comes from splitting JG and Monny”
“backlund is a scrub”
To all the people who said that, how about them apples
You got it bud
Many in this crowd are brutal. They’re not fans. And with the way they lose their minds at the slightest adversity, I wouldn’t want to go into battle with many of them.
Well said buddy I’m in your camp!
Add “break up the 3M line they suck” to that list! Goal Frolik!!
You know your a good team when you have bad goal tending , go into the third down by 3 to a playoff team and are winning the game half way threw the third lol all we have to do is not let another shot threw
This is insane
Oh you’ve stopped panicking?
No
Didn’t think so…
Were you done panicking after colorados 5th? Ha
Frolik and Neal?
Secondary scoring here we come!
Smith better give head to every flames player because they just saved his as s
Just…… LOL.
Frols open up the floodgates!!
This is re tarted this team is so good , rittich still needs to start next game
I agree but Smith been huge in the 3rd
He was not huge in the third he made average saves
Thats pretty huge compared to the first two periods
EYEBROWS has his 6th!!!
Sneaky 6! He is just about scoring at .5 per game!
Smith making a few good saves here
Nice of him to show up
Look at Smith climbing back to .800 ?
Can we please win a faceoff?