Flames Game Day 79: Hosting the Canucks once more (8pm MT, CBC/SN/City)

The Calgary Flames (48-20-10, 106 points) will look to close out their regular season home schedule on a positive note on Saturday night. They host the Vancouver Canucks (38-29-11, 87 points), a team that remains mathematically in the hunt but is seeing their playoff hopes gradually dimming as other teams creep closer to clinching. Can the Flames put a dagger in the heart of one of their traditional rivals?

The game is set for 8 p.m. MT and you can catch it on CBC, Sportsnet’s national feed and City TV, and on Sportsnet 960 The Fan!

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

@Johnny Gaudreau – @Elias Lindholm – @Matthew Tkachuk
@Andrew Mangiapane – @Mikael Backlund – @Tyler Toffoli
@Dillon Dube – @Calle Jarnkrok – @Blake Coleman
@Milan Lucic – @Trevor Lewis – @Brett Ritchie

@Noah Hanifin – @Rasmus Andersson
@Oliver Kylington – @Chris Tanev
@Nikita Zadorov – @Erik Gudbranson

@Daniel Vladar is expected to start in net, backed up by @Dustin Wolf. The projected scratches are @Adam Ruzicka, @Connor Mackey, @Michael Stone and @Ryan Carpenter. (@Jacob Markstrom is being rested and won’t dress. For the purposes of Wolf’s emergency recall, Markstrom’s day-to-day with… something… since they have to identify an injured player for the league’s recall paperwork. But he’ll likely be back in net for the Nashville game on Tuesday.)

The Flames clinched the division last game, and the final four games are about rounding into form, smoothing some rough spots out of their lineup, and getting ready for the start of the playoffs in a week or so. Expect the Flames to really try to focus in on the details and play a composed, structured, mature game.

They’ll be playing an energized, desperate Canucks team, so let’s see if the locals can weather an early storm from a Vancouver squad that needs to win.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

@Vasily Podkolzin – @J.T. Miller – @Alex Chiasson
@Conor Garland – @Elias Pettersson – @Brock Boeser
@Matthew Highmore – @Juho Lammikko – @Will Lockwood
@Jason Dickinson – @Brad Richardson – @Sheldon Dries

@Oliver Ekman-Larsson – @Tyler Myers
@Quinn Hughes – @Luke Schenn
@Travis Dermott – @Brad Hunt

@Thatcher Demko likely starts for Vancouver, backed up by @Spencer Martin. Their projected extras are @Nic Petan, @Kyle Burroughs and @Tucker Poolman.

Vancouver’s maximum possible points is 95 right now. If they lose, they will only be able to catch Dallas (currently at 91 points) in the playoff hunt. In short: they absolutely, positively cannot afford a loss of any kind. They need points, and perhaps a time machine, to claw their way into the Western Conference playoff picture.

The Canucks won six in a row, but a pair of losses that followed have pushed them to brink of mathematical elimination.

The Flames are without Sean Monahan.

The Canucks are without Micheal Ferland, Brady Keeper, Brandon Sutter, Nils Hoglander, Tanner Pearson, Bo Horvat and Jaroslav Halak.

This is the fourth and final meeting between these teams this season. The Flames have won two out of three previous meetings, with their lone loss being that 7-1 clobbering back on Feb. 24. That said, the Canucks wore their awesome flying skate jerseys in that game, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Your recommended Twitter follows for tonight’s contest: