Flames Playoff Game Day: Beginning the first round with the Dallas Stars (8pm MT, CBC/SN)

It’s the second day of the best tournament in sports, and it’s time for the Western Conference quarterfinal series between the Calgary Flames (1st place, Pacific Division) and the Dallas Stars (4th place, Central Division – 1st wildcard seed) to begin! It’s Game 1 of a rematch between two teams that faced off in 2020, when higher-seeded Dallas came out on top. Only time, and the next four to seven games, will tell if the outcome will be different this go-around.

The festivities begin at 8 p.m. MT. You can catch the game on CBC and Sportnet’s national feed in Canada (with Rick Ball and Greg Millen), ESPN2 in the United States (with Gord Miller and Dom Moore), and over the airwaves on Sportsnet 960 The Fan (with Derek Wills and Peter Loubardias)!

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

@Jacob Markstrom [37-15-9, 2.22 GAA, .922 SV% in regular season] starts in net, backed up by @Daniel Vladar. The scratches are expected to be blueliners @Michael Stone and @Connor Mackey, and forwards @Ryan Carpenter and @Adam Ruzicka.

In the month of April, the Flames went 10-3-2 and had the sixth-best points percentage in the league. They out-scored the opposition 38-28 at five-on-five and were out-scored 10-9 on special teams in April. This suggests that the key to victory for the Flames may just be keeping things even-keel and at even-strength: when the Flames can use all their lines and pairings and get a rhythm going, they’re tough to beat.

Keep your eye on @Dillon Dube tonight. In April, @Johnny Gaudreau led the Flames in five-on-five scoring with seven goals. Tied for second was Dube, who really came on strong in the latter part of the season and makes the third line a lot more fast, dynamic, and dangerous.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

@Jason Robertson – @Roope Hintz – @Joe Pavelski
@Jamie Benn – @Vladislav Namestnikov – @Tyler Seguin
@Joel Kiviranta – @Radek Faksa – @Denis Gurianov
@Michael Raffl – @Luke Glendening – @Alexander Radulov

@Ryan Suter – @Miro Heiskanen
@Esa Lindell – @John Klingberg
@Joel Hanley – @Jani Hakanpaa

@Jake Oettinger [30-15-1, 2.53 GAA, .914 SV% in regular season] starts for the Stars, backed up by @Scott Wedgewood. The scratches are expected to be defencemen @Andrej Sekera and @Thomas Harley, and forwards @Jacob Peterson and @Marian Studenic.

In the month of April, the Stars went 8-5-3 and had the 16th-best points percentage in the NHL. They were out-scored 27-35 at five-on-five but out-scored the opposition 12-7 on special teams in April. The Stars weren’t terrible in the final month of the season, but a lot of their success was driven by their special teams (and they were uneven at five-on-five).

Keep your eye on @Jason Robertson in Game 1. He was Dallas’ most productive goal-scorer in a fairly uneven month of April, and he’ll need to be good if the Stars are going to have success in this series.

(Regular season.)

The Flames are without Sean Monahan.

The Stars are without Braden Holtby.

These teams played three times in the regular season. Dallas beat the Flames in overtime back in November, but the Flames beat them in regulation in February and April.

Your recommended Twitter follows for tonight’s contest:

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