The Calgary Flames (22-11-3, 47 points) finish off the pre-Christmas section of their schedule with a rare Saturday afternoon home game. They host the St. Louis Blues (13-16-4, 30 points), facing them for the second time in seven days. Can the Flames head into the holidays with a victory?
The action begins at 2 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

The Flames

Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Gaudreau – Monahan – Lindholm
Tkachuk – Backlund –  Bennett
Frolik – Jankowski – Neal
Quine – Ryan – Hathaway
Giordano – Brodie
Hanifin – Hamonic
Kylington – Andersson
Mike Smith starts for the Flames, backed up by David Rittich. Smith’s actually riding a winning streak, with wins in his last six decisions, but he hasn’t played in over a week. The projected scratches are Dalton Prout, Austin Czarnik and Ryan Lomberg. Michael Frolik is expected to return after being out since Nov. 19 with a high ankle sprain.
The Flames lost a really, really entertaining game on Thursday night against Tampa Bay, but they’re a group that’s very confident in their style of play and their ability to play with the league’s best teams. They have four players in the top 25 in league scoring (Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm) and Mark Giordano is one of the NHL’s defensive scoring leaders.
To be blunt, this game features one of the top teams in the NHL against one of its worst. It could get ugly.

The Blues

Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Schwartz – Schenn – Tarasenko
Steen – O’Reilly – Perron
Maroon – Bozak – Thomas
Nolan – Barbashev – Sundqvist
Edmundson – Parayko
Bouwmeester – Bortuzzo
Dunn – Butler
Jake Allen starts for the Blues, backed up by Jordan Binnington. The projected healthy scratches are Jordan Schmaltz and Zach Sanford.
The Blues have played two games since their 7-2 loss to the Flames last weekend: they beat the Oilers 4-1 in Edmonton and then got tuned up 5-1 by the Vancouver Canucks. They’re a really inconsistent bunch and that’s been the thing keeping them in the league’s basement.

The Numbers

CGY
STL
Wins
22
13
Points
47
30
Corsi Close
53.9%
49.6%
Power Play
22.4%
21.1%
Penalty Kill
80.5%
82.5%

Injury Report

The Flames are without Juuso Valimaki, Michael Frolik and Michael Stone.
The Blues are without Robby Fabbri, Alex Pietrangelo and Carl Gunnarsson.

Season Series

This is the last game of their season series. They split their two meetings in St. Louis: the Blues won 5-3 in October but the Flames won 7-2 earlier this week.

Know Thy Enemy

Your Blues Twitter follows for today:

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