Calgary Flames Game Day 71: A quick trip to Chicago (6:30pm MT)

After a challenging weekend, the Calgary Flames (33-32-5, 71 points) head to the land of deep dish pizza and tasty hot dogs when they face the Chicago Blackhawks (20-46-5, 45 points). The Flames have lost three in a row despite playing fairly well recently, but they’ll try to halt their skid against the NHL’s 31st-best team.

The broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. The Flames opened as -175 favourites against the Blackhawks on Betway.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff and NHL.com:

Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman
Zary – Kadri – Pospisil
Huberdeau – Sharangovich – Kuzmenko
Greer – Rooney – Coronato

Kylington – Andersson
Weegar – Miromanov
Okhotiuk – Pachal

We’re projecting Jacob Markstrom to start in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. We’re anticipating that the healthy extras for this game are Dryden Hunt, Walker Duehr, Dennis Gilbert and Joel Hanley.

The Flames have lost three in a row – against Washington, Vancouver and Buffalo – and that streak has pushed them 14 points behind Vegas for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Their post-season hopes are nearly completely extinguished, but now the name of the game is building good habits and tactics for next season, and evaluating some of the organization’s young and lesser-known players.

Lately, if the Flames have good special teams they’re losing the five-on-five battle. And when they’re winning the five-on-five battle, they’re struggling on special teams. They’re trying to find a bit of balance and consistency as the season winds down. We’ll see if they can take a step against Chicago.

Projected lines courtesy Daily Faceoff:

Vlasic – Jones
Korchinski – Megna
Kaiser – Zaitsev

We’re projecting Petr Mrazek to start in net, backed up by Arvid Soderblom. The lone healthy extra skater is Jarrod Tinordi.

Chicago is 38 points out and well out of playoff contention. Heck, they’re already mathematically eliminated. The main reason to watch Blackhawks games these days is seeing Connor Bedard do his thing.

The Flames are without Dillon Dube.

The Blackhawks are without Taylor Hall, Connor Murphy, Reese Johnson and Colin Blackwell.

This is the finale of their three-game season series. The Flames and Blackhawks have each won a game so far.