Calgary Flames Game Day 63: Trying to tame the Fancy Cats (2pm MT)

In the aftermath of the trade deadline, the Calgary Flames (31-26-5, 67 points) continue their three game road trip through the American Southeast. Next up, the Florida Panthers (43-17-4, 90 points), a team riding high and sitting atop the NHL’s overall standings. Can the Flames continue their run as giant-killers?

The broadcast begins at 2 p.m. MT on Sportsnet’s national feed and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames opened as +185 underdogs against the Panthers on Betway.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

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

Andersson – Weegar
Kylington – Miromanov
Hanley – Pachal

We’re projecting Jacob Markstrom to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. Martin Pospisil serves the second game of his three game suspension. The expected healthy scratches are Nikita Okhotiuk and Dennis Gilbert. Wearing 62, Daniil Miromanov makes his Flames debut against Florida.

Since the Flames traded Elias Lindholm, ostensibly their first-line centre, they’ve gone 9-4-0. They’ve beaten the powerhouse Boston Bruins twice. They went into Edmonton and ran the Oilers’ show and beat them fairly handily. The Flames seem to have a pretty good handle on the style of game they need to play, and they’ve shown the ability to play that game fairly regularly lately.

Y’know who had a good game on Thursday? Matt Coronato. If we’re being honest, yeah, he probably goes either to the press box or the AHL once Martin Pospisil returns from his suspension or Connor Zary returns from injury. But Coronato did a ton of small, smart things that led to scoring chances – and directly to a couple goals. Coronato’s put in some work with the Wranglers, and that work has started to show at the NHL level.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

We’re projecting Sergei Bobrovsky to start in net, backed up by Anthony Stolarz. Their projected extras are Tobias Bjornfot, Josh Mahura, Steven Lorentz, Jonah Gadjovich and Ryan Lomberg. Update: Stolarz starts for Florida. Lomberg is in instead of Okposo.

The Panthers are good. Thursday’s loss against Philadelphia snapped their six game winning streak. But they’re 12-3-0 since the All-Star break, and they’ve gotten good performances from up and down their lineup. They’re one of the top teams in the NHL, deservedly so, and they don’t have a lot of holes in their team. If the Flames want to get two points, they need to replicate the performance they had on Thursday night.

The Flames are without Dillon Dube, A.J. Greer and Connor Zary.

The Panthers are healthy.

This is the finale of their two game season series. The Flames beat Florida by a 3-1 score in Calgary back in December.