FGD 51: The Dougie Bowl (7pm MT, SN West)

After big wins on back to back nights followed by two days without games, the Calgary Flames (32-13-5, 69 points) will try to keep inching towards a post-season berth tonight at the Scotiabank Saddledome. The Flames welcome the Carolina Hurricanes (23-20-5, 51 points), the team that gave the Flames their head coach and three pretty effective pieces of their lineup through a trade and free agency and received Dougie Hamilton, Micheal Ferland and the rights to Adam Fox for their troubles.

The action starts at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:

David Rittich starts for the Flames, backed up by Mike Smith. Their healthy scratches are Dalton Prout and Austin Czarnik. It’s the first time Noah Hanifin, Derek Ryan and Elias Lindholm will play their former club.

The Flames are 10-1-2 since Christmas. They’re six points up on the San Jose Sharks for first place in the Pacific Division. They’re 18 points up on both the ninth-place Minnesota Wild and the Anaheim Ducks (who are fourth in the Pacific), so they have a pretty massive cushion on potentially falling out of the post-season.

From here on out, the purpose of the games are to get battle ready for the playoffs. It’ll be interesting to see how Bill Peters tinkers and tweaks his groupings.

Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:

Petr Mrazek starts for Carolina, backed up by Alex Nedeljkovic. After missing Sunday’s game in Edmonton with a back injury former Flames great Micheal Ferland expects to play, so Carolina likely reverts back to lineup they dressed against Ottawa on Friday. They had to go with 11 and 7 against Edmonton due to Ferland’s injury. Haydn Fleury is likely bumped to the sideline due to Ferland’s return.

The Hurricanes are seven points back of Pittsburgh for the last wildcard spot. It’s hard to tell if they’ve underachieved this year or if this is how good a young, inconsistent group really is. They are, in many ways, as Dougie Hamilton is – they’re a dynamic, exciting team that probably should have better results than they do.

The Flames are without Juuso Valimaki and Michael Stone.

The Hurricanes are without Jordan Staal and Curtis McElhinney.

This is the first of two meetings between the Flames and ‘Canes. They meet again in early February in Raleigh, home of museums.

Your Hurricanes Twitter follows for tonight:

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