Calgary Flames Game Day 66: Duck hunting at the ‘Dome (7pm MT, SNW/960)

Photo credit:Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

17 days ago

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With their playoff hopes hanging by a thread, the Calgary Flames (29-23-13, 71 points) won back-to-back games on the road to kick off this week. Can they run their running streak to three games, a season high, when they host the Anaheim Ducks (21-35-9, 51 points)? They’re gonna need to if they want their playoff dreams to get closer to reality.

The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan!

The Flames

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Pelletier – Lindholm – Toffoli
Ritchie – Kadri – Huberdeau
Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman
Lucic – Dube – Lewis

Weegar – Andersson
Hanifin – Tanev
Zadorov – Stecher

We’re projecting Jacob Markstrom to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. (Markstrom’s been fantastic lately.) The expected scratches are Walker Duehr, Adam Ruzicka and Dennis Gilbert.

The good news? The Flames have won twice in a row! They found ways to win, in the same ways that they’ve often found ways to lose this season. Progress! The bad news? Well, uh, they’re still not scoring a ton of goals, and they’ll need to get their big offensive weapons going if they want to have any hope of playing past April 13.

The Ducks

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

McGinn – Zegras – Strome
Jones – McTavish – Terry
Vatrano – Lundestrom – Silfverberg
Comtois – Grant – Leason

Fowler – Harrington
Benoit – Shattenkirk
White – Beaulieu

We’re projecting John Gibson to start in net, backed up by Lukas Dostal. Their projected extras are Jaycob Megna and Sam Carrick.

The Ducks are firmly in Connor Bedard territory, and they sold off Dmitry Kulikov and John Klingberg at the trade deadline. But they’re 5-6-4 since the trade deadline, with an identical record as the Flames have. They’re not a good team, but they’re no push-overs, and nowhere as bad as folks seem to think they are.

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Unavailable players

The Flames are without Oliver Kylington and Michael Stone.

The Ducks are without Jamie Drysdale, John Moore, Urho Vaakanainen, Adam Henrique and Anthony Stolarz.

It’s a race!

The Flames enter Friday’s games chasing a few teams:

They’re two points ahead of Nashville for ninth place, but Nashville has three games in hand.
They’re four points behind Winnipeg (for the final wild-card spot).
They’re nine points behind Edmonton (for the first wild-card spot).
They’re nine points behind Seattle (for the final divisional spot).

To reach 95 points (and have a reasonable chance at a playoff spot), the Flames need 24 points over the final 17 games – that’s a .706 pace in their remaining games.

If the season ended today, by virtue of points percentage, the Flames would be drafting 14th overall (before the lottery).