Flames Playoff Game Day: Visitors aim to mess with Texas in Game 3 (7:30pm MT, CBC/SN)

After splitting the first two games in Canada, the Calgary Flames (1-1; 1st place, Pacific Division) head down to Texas to visit the Dallas Stars (1-1; 1st wildcard seed, Western Conference) in Game 3 of their best-of-seven playoff series. The first two games have been physical, tight-checking and low scoring. Will that trend continue as the series shifts to the American Airlines Center?

The festivities begin at 7:30 p.m. MT. You can catch the game on CBC and Sportnet’s national feed in Canada (with Rick Ball and Greg Millen), TNT in the United States (with Brendan Burke and Darren Pang), 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 [1-1, 0.51 GAA, .974 SV%] starts in net, backed up by @Daniel Vladar. The scratches are expected to be goaltender @Adam Werner, blueliners @Michael Stone and @Connor Mackey, and forwards @Ryan Carpenter and @Adam Ruzicka.

The Flames have played pretty well overall through their first two games. Their details haven’t been all that good in key moments, though, aside from Elias Lindholm’s face-off win on the power play in Game 1 that led to Calgary’s lone goal. Noah Hanifin’s execution in his own zone in Game 2 led to Dallas’ lone (defended) goal. It seems like the team that makes the fewest mistakes in this game will come away with the win.

The big question for Game 3: Can the Flames get more into the high-danger areas around the Stars net? Jake Oettinger has been very good, but he’s booted out rebounds that are right there for the Flames in front of the net, if only they can battle there way to that area. Disrupting Dallas’ defensive structure is perhaps the big challenge for the Flames’ players and coaches. If they can do it, there’s a path open to round two.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

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

@Jake Oettinger [1-1, 0.50 GAA, .982 SV%] starts for the Stars, backed up by @Scott Wedgewood. The scratches are expected to be goalie @Adam Scheel, defencemen @Andrej Sekera and @Thomas Harley, and forwards @Jacob Peterson and @Alexander Radulov. Studenic slots in on the fourth line in place of Radulov, while Faksa and Seguin swap in the bottom two Stars lines as Rick Bowness continues to tinker.

Dallas shuffled up their lines a bit for Game 2, splitting up Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. The gambit worked, giving them a lot of veteran poise across their lineup and that, combined with their checking and structure, made for a low-event game. The Flames used their speed to try to break up Dallas’ structure a bit, but the Stars have done a marvellous job of boxing the Flames out through two games.

The Flames are without Sean Monahan.

The Stars are without Braden Holtby.

The Flames won two out of three meetings in the regular season – their lone loss was in overtime – and they’ve split the first two games of this series.

Your recommended Twitter follows for tonight’s contest:

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