Calgary Flames Game Day 61: Closing out the homestand against the Kraken (7:30pm MT)

After a dramatic comeback win on Saturday night, the Calgary Flames (30-25-5, 65 points) will attempt to extend their season-high winning streak to six games when they face another team battling to stay alive in the Western Conference playoff picture, the Seattle Kraken (26-23-11, 63 points). The Flames are playing well and finding ways to win, but can they overcome what’s becoming a very desperate Kraken squad?

The broadcast begins at 7:30 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames opened as -130 favourites against the Kraken on Betway.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

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

Hanifin – Weegar
Kylington – Andersson
Oesterle – Pachal

We’re projecting Jacob Markstrom to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. With Connor Zary out day-to-day with an upper body injury, there’s a bit of line shuffling, with Andrei Kuzmenko moving up to the second line and Walker Duehr rotating back in. Dennis Gilbert and Matt Coronato look to be the healthy extras.

Man, this has been a wild season, hasn’t it? And the past 11 games since the All-Star break – and the departure of Elias Lindholm – are arguably the perfect encapsulation of the season. It’s felt like watching the team try to land a plane while removing pieces of the plane mid-flight. It’s pretty astonishing how well the season has gone in this context. The Flames are improbably 8-3-0 since the All-Star break and riding a five-game winning streak.

Keep an eye on Oliver Kylington against Seattle. Kylington got pressed into duty in the top four with the departure of Chris Tanev, and after a shaky start he really settled in and ended the evening with a plus-2 rating. You can see his swagger and confidence grow every game.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

We’re projecting Philipp Grubauer to start in net, backed up by Joey Daccord. Alex Wennberg is not playing this evening and Seattle’s lone healthy extra last game was defender Ryker Evans. So either the Kraken go 11 forwards and seven defenders, or perhaps Andre Burakovsky, who reportedly practised in a regular (non-caution) jersey over the weekend and is on the active roster, could return. We’ll see what we get at warm-up.

As play begins on Monday, the Kraken are nine points behind Nashville for the final wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference with two games in hand. That’s… a lot. They lost to Edmonton on Saturday and have alternated wins and losses since the All-Star break. Simply put: they need to get string some wins together, and quickly. Expect a pretty scrappy, desperate Kraken team on Monday evening. If they end up 10 or more points back of the final spot, that’ll be hard to overcome.

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

The Kraken are without Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Andre Burakovsky.

This is the finale of their four game season series. The Flames beat the Kraken twice in Seattle, while the Kraken beat the Flames once in Calgary. (Yes, the road team has won every game between these clubs this season, which is quite an anomaly.)