Calgary Flames Game Day 29: That’s it, back to Vegas (8pm MT)

One night after losing a heartbreaker in Denver, the Calgary Flames (11-14-3, 25 points) are headed to their personal house of pain: T-Mobile Arena in palatial Paradise, Nevada, where they face the Vegas Golden Knights (19-5-5, 43 points). The Flames have a lifetime 1-7-1 record in Las Vegas, and they’re playing on a back-to-back.

The broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames are +160 underdogs against the Golden Knights on Betway.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

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

Weegar – Andersson
Hanifin – Gilbert
Solovyov – Oesterle

It’s a back-to-back, so there’s no morning skate. Here are some reasonable inferences based on what we think we know. Dustin Wolf likely starts, backed up by Dan Vladar. The healthy extras on Monday were Walker Duehr and Matt Coronato. We don’t expect to see Chris Tanev after he suffered an unspecified upper body injury, so likely Jordan Oesterle rolls in.

The Flames were pretty good against Colorado. Playing a man short, they did a pretty decent job generating offence. But their defensive foibles continued to pop up at bad times, particularly occasional panic trying to get the puck out of their own end. When the Flames get jumpy, bad things happen. They got jumpy too often against the Avalanche.

The key to beating Vegas on the second half of a back-to-back: play smart, play simple, and hope you get some puck luck. When you get too fancy against the Golden Knights… bad things can happen.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Barbashev – Eichel – Stone
Howden – Stephenson – Marchessault
Cotter – Karlsson – Amadio
Carrier – Roy – Kolesar

Hutton – Pietrangelo
McNabb – Korczak
Hague – Whitecloud

We’re projecting Logan Thompson to start in net, backed up by Jiri Patera. Their projected extas are Brayden Pachal and Pavel Dorofeyev.

The Golden Knights were last in action in a bit of a track meet against San Jose on Sunday night, which they won 5-4 after a shootout after the Sharks came back in the third period. Vegas is a group that find ways to squirrel away points. Since a late November loss to Arizona, they’re 5-0-3. They can beat their opponents in a lot of different ways, and they’re a deep, smart, confident hockey team.

This is going to be a very challenging game for the hockey team from Calgary.

The Flames are without Oliver Kylington, Jakob Pelletier, Kevin Rooney, Jacob Markstrom and Chris Tanev.

The Golden Knights are without Robin Lehner, Daniil Miromanov, Alec Martinez, Shea Theodore and Adin Hill.

This is the second of four meetings between these two teams. The Flames beat Vegas at the ‘Dome by a 2-1 score in overtime last month. They’ll meet again in Vegas in January and Calgary in March.