Calgary Flames Game Day 17: Here come the Islanders (5pm MT)

Playing their best hockey of the season so far, the Calgary Flames (6-8-2, 14 points) will look to keep amassing points and climbing up the standings when they host the New York Islanders (5-6-5, 15 points). The Islanders are in the middle of a slide, and the Flames would like nothing more than to keep that slide going for at least one more game.

The broadcast begins at 5 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames are -140 favourites to beat the Islanders on Betway.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Dube – Lindholm – Mangiapane
Zary – Kadri – Pospisil
Huberdeau – Backlund – Coleman
Greer – Ruzicka – Sharangovich

Weegar – Andersson
Hanifin – Tanev
Zadorov – DeSimone

We’re expecting Jacob Markstrom to start, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras are Dennis Gilbert and Walker Duehr. The Flames look to be dressing the same lineup as they have the past two games, both wins.

Dating back to the Flames’ loss to Dallas, they’ve been quite good. Heck, they weren’t all that bad in the back half of the Heritage Classic. The Flames followed up those two pretty good losses with six games where they got the results they wanted. They’re rolling with a 4-1-1 record over their past six games – their lone regulation loss was in the second half of a back-to-back following a high-event game in Toronto the previous evening.

Keep an eye on captain Mikael Backlund: his next point will be the 500th of his NHL career. Could it come against the Islanders, the team he made his NHL debut against way back in 2009?

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Barzal – Horvat – Holmstrom
Engvall – Nelson – Palmieri
Lee – Pageau – Wahlstrom
Fasching – Cizikas – Clutterbuck

Pelech – Dobson
Romanov – Pulock
Aho – Mayfield

We’re projecting Ilya Sorokin to start in net, backed up by Semyon Varlamov. The projected extra skaters are Samuel Bolduc, Matt Martin, and Denis Gauthier’s nephew, Julien.

Life hasn’t been fun on the Island as of late. The Flames’ expansion siblings from 1972 have lost seven in a row, and have won just one game in their last nine outings. They’ve been out-scored 28-15 during the last seven games, and they’ve come by their challenges honestly: they’re not generating a ton offensively, and they give up too much defensively. The Islanders are in a spiral, and they need to figure out how to fix it before their season slips away.

The Flames are without Oliver Kylington, Jakob Pelletier and Kevin Rooney.

The Islanders are healthy.

This is the first of two meetings between these teams this season. They’ll finish their season series in New York in February.