Calgary Flames Game Day 60: The Flames honour Miikka Kiprusoff and host the Penguins (8pm MT)

Can the Calgary Flames (29-25-5, 63 points) extend their winning streak to a season-high five games? We’ll find out on Saturday at the Saddledome, as the Flames host the Pittsburgh Penguins (27-22-8, 62 points), a former powerhouse looking to claw their way into the East’s playoff picture. This evening will begin with a ceremony retiring Miikka Kiprusoff’s jersey number. Will it end with the gentlemen in red celebrating another win?

The broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on CBC, Sportsnet’s national feed, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet One, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames opened as -125 favourites against the Penguins on Betway.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman
Zary – Kadri – Pospisil
Huberdeau – Sharangovich – Hunt
Pelletier – Rooney – Kuzmenko

Hanifin – Weegar
Kylington – Andersson
Gilbert – Pachal

We’re projecting Jacob Markstrom to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras, via Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg (Thanks Pat!) are Jordan Oesterle and Walker Duehr. The defensive pairs shuffle with Chris Tanev’s departure, with Dennis Gilbert entering the lineup for the first time since Jan. 27, while Duehr is bumped in favour of a now-healthy Andrei Kuzmenko. Expect the third and fourth lines to be a bit of a swirl as they figure out who works best with who.

The Flames enter the day’s action seven points behind the Nashville Predators for the final wild card spot in the Western Conference, and hold two games in hand. They’ve won four games in a row. If they win their fifth game, it’ll be their longest winning streak since April 2022 – yes, basically two full seasons.

With Tanev gone, moving into the top two pairings is Oliver Kylington. He rejoins fellow 2015 draft pick Rasmus Andersson on the second pairing, and it’ll be interesting to see how Kylington reacts to a larger role after performing really well on the third pairing.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

We’re projecting Tristan Jarry to start in net, backed up by Axel Nedeljkovic. The projected extra skaters are Matthew Phillips, Jonathan Gruden and John Ludvig.

The Penguins enter Saturday’s action eight points behind Tampa Bay for the East’s final wild card playoff spot: they do have five games in hand, though, so they can make up ground pretty quickly if they get hot. This is the third game of a four game western trip. They split their first two games with Vancouver and Seattle.

Keep an eye on Sidney Crosby. At age 36, in his 19th NHL season, he leads the Penguins in basically everything.

The Flames are without Dillon Dube and A.J. Greer.

The Penguins are without Matthew Nieto, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust.

This is the finale of their two-game season series. The Penguins beat the Flames by a 5-2 score back in Pittsburgh way back in October.