FGD 14: Duck hunt (7:30pm MT, SN1)

After a moderate debacle last evening in Los Angeles, the Calgary Flames drive slightly south for the second part of their back-to-back games tonight. They visit the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center, and they’re going for history.

Can the Flames avoid setting an NHL record for utter futility in a single building? Find out at 7:30 p.m MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan!

Lines via Daily Faceoff:

This will be mostly guesswork, as the Flames aren’t skating prior to tonight’s game – as is the usual mode of operation when they’re on back-to-back games.

Brian Elliott was expected to start tonight, but he faced a ton of shots (and gave up five goals) against the Kings. Does last night’s clown show change the plan and get Chad Johnson a start? Or does the fact that the Flames don’t play again until Thursday night get Elliott back into the crease?

Kris Versteeg has officially joined Ladislav Smid on the injured reserve and the Flames have brought up Hunter Shinkaruk. Lance Bouma left last night’s game in the early part of the second period and didn’t return. The presumption is that he’s also hurt. Barring any other moves, I would assume that Shinkaruk slots in for Bouma and then lines get shuffled a bit (as displayed above) and that Jokipakka slots back in for Grossmann. But that’s mostly guesswork. Aside from the salary cap implications, I sincerely doubt that anybody else gets recalled from Stockton because they played Friday and Saturday, so I can’t see them putting anybody in for the third game in as many nights.

The Flames were bad last night. They’ll need to be a lot better if they hope to leave Anaheim with their dignity intact. Or better yet, perhaps even some points.

Lines via Daily Faceoff:

After picking up the win on Friday, it sounds like John Gibson gets the start again tonight. He’s been good this season on a Ducks team that’s been a tad uneven to start the year.

The Ducks are a bit injured-riddled, to say the least; they’re currently without Simon Despres, Nate Thompson, Nick Ritchie and Ryan Getzlaf. Hampus Lindholm is also currently in the process of getting a visa, so he’s also unavailable for the time being. (The Orange County Register’s Eric Stephens is reporting that one of Ritchie or Getzlaf could be available for tonight, though.) That being said, the Ducks that have been playing have been decent. The big challenge for Anaheim is that they don’t have as much of their vaunted depth, and they’ve had a few growing pains getting used to Randy Carlyle being behind the bench again.

Their special teams have been pretty good so far and it would behoove the Flames to avoid taking penalties tonight.

Tonight is the 97th regular season game between Anaheim and Calgary. The Flames have a 37-44-15 record all-time. They lost all five meetings with Anaheim last season (by scores of 5-3, 1-0, 6-4, 5-2 and 8-3). This is the first of five games with the Ducks this season.

Some Ducks follows for tonight’s contest:

After last night’s “performance,” the absolute least that should be hoped for from the Flames is a better effort and more consistency. Anything else would probably be a bonus.