FGD: The Battle of Alberta in July (8:30pm MT, SN West)

After 142 days without a game, the Calgary Flames finally play another National Hockey League club in an actual game on Tuesday in Edmonton. And as luck would have it, the Flames get a playoff tune-up with an exhibition game against their most bitter rival of all, the Edmonton Oilers.

Play nice, everyone, the real action begins on Saturday.

The puck drops just past 8:30 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West (and the other Sportsnet regional feeds) and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines for tonight:

Gaudreau – Monahan – Lindholm
Mangiapane – Backlund – Tkachuk
Lucic – Ryan – Dube
Bennett – Jankowski – Rieder
Rinaldo

Giordano – Brodie
Hanifin – Andersson
Forbort – Gustafsson
Stone or Kylington

The plan is for both David Rittich and Cam Talbot to play, but a starter hasn’t been announced yet. All we have right now is guesswork lines because practices and morning skates are closed in Phase 4. (Womp womp.) Teams are able to dress an extra forward and defender (for 13 forwards and seven defenders total) in their exhibition game.

When the match-up was announced, Flames interim head coach Geoff Ward was upbeat about it, noting the many similarities between the Oilers and the Jets make the northern rivals almost a perfect tune-up. Keep an eye on the special teams units and how Ward uses his top lines to counter Edmonton’s top trios – they could both be previews for how the Flames go after Winnipeg’s top-heavy group.

Here’s projected lines for tonight. (Like the Flames, Edmonton is dressing an extra forward and defender):

Ennis – Draisaitl – Yamamoto
Nugent-Hopkins – McDavid – Kassian
Neal – Khaira – Chiasson
Athanasiou – Haas – Archibald
Nygaard

Nurse – Bear
Klebom – Larsson
Russell – Benning
Jones

Like the Flames, Edmonton doesn’t have a clear-cut starter so expect both Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith to take a twirl this evening. Edmonton appears to be without Riley Sheahan, at least for tonight, as he’s been unable to participate in the past few days of on-ice work.

The Flames and Oilers met four times during the regular season. All the games were dreadfully dull affairs, with Calgary winning three out of four. Their last meeting was an 8-3 Edmonton win back on Feb. 1.

I am told that there was fisticuffs involving the goaltenders in that game, but that couldn’t have been the case because these two teams are the best of friends.

There are two other games on tonight for the hockey-starved masses: