Calgary Flames Game Day: Hosting the Jets (7pm MT)

We’re into the final week of the National Hockey League’s pre-season calendar, when rosters begin to get heavy with big-league players and the games start to get pretty competitive. The Calgary Flames begin a week of three games over five days with a visit from the Winnipeg Jets, who they beat in Winnipeg last week.

The puck drops at 7 p.m. MT and you can catch the action streamed on the Flames website or listen live on Sportsnet 960 The Fan!

Here are guesswork lines, based on the posted roster and Sunday’s skate:

Huberdeau – Lindholm – Mangiapane
Sharangovich – Backlund – Coronato
Ruzicka – Kadri – Dube
Hunt – Schwindt – Coleman

Weegar – Andersson
Hanifin – Tanev
Zadorov – Oesterle
Solovyov – DeSimone

Jacob Markstrom and Dustin Wolf are listed as the goaltenders. We expect (obviously) one of the posted defensive pairings to be sitting, and based on Markstrom playing two periods so far and Wolf playing two games, maybe expect to see Markstrom go the distance on Monday evening.

After Friday’s cuts the Flames are down to 42 players.

The Flames have played five games so far: a 10-0 win over Vancouver, a 5-3 loss to Seattle, a 3-2 shootout win over Seattle, a 3-2 shootout win over Winnipeg, and a 2-1 overtime win to Edmonton. They all count the same in the standings.

Projected lines for Monday night:

Alex Iafallo – Brad Lambert – Vladislav Namestnikov
Nino Niederreiter – Cole Perfetti – Mason Appleton
Dominic Toninato – Rasmus Kupari – Parker Ford
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby – David Gustafsson – Jeffrey Viel

Josh Morrissey – Dylan DeMelo
Brenden Dillon – Neal Pionk
Logan Stanley – Ville Heinola
(Dylan Samberg – Nate Schmidt)

Connor Hellebuyck is expected to start and go the distance, with Collin Delia backing up.

In four pre-season games so far, the Jets have won twice (beating Edmonton twice) and lost twice (losing to Calgary and Winnipeg).