Welcome to the Game Day Fire Drill, for this, Calgary’s 13th game of the season on Nov. 4, 2009.

Okay so that whole "killing it at home" thing didn’t work. The Flames pretty much did alarmingly little, all things considered, with their too-long homestand and now are rewarded by being sent on the road for a back-to-back. Hooray.

The good news, I suppose, is that the teams they’re playing aren’t very good. Dallas may have more points than the Flames, but they also have two more games under their belt and almost a third of their points have come from overtime losses, which means they’ve given up an additional five points to various opponents and, in fact, are 1-5 in overtime or a shootout. So that’s good-ish.

The problem is that a number of important players on Calgary that are supposed to be playing well, or at least earning their contracts, are not doing so. Jokinen, Iginla, etc. Okay, maybe just those two. But that’s an IMPORTANT two, right?

Calgary will need to win tonight because it sure as hell won’t do it tomorrow.

The Calgary Flames (7-4-1 for 15 points. Tied for eighth in the West, third in the Northwest) and the Dallas Stars (6-3-5 for 17 points. Seventh in the West, third in the Pacific).

6:30 p.m. Mountain time and 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas.

Calgary is 2-1-1 on the road this year which, while good, is also indicative of the Flames’ inexperience in playing road hockey under Brent Sutter. One suspects that will not be beneficial here. The Stars are 2-2-2 at home, which has to be less-than-encouraging for them.

Mike Modano — He comes off the IR tonight. Seriously, how old is this guy?

Mike Ribeiro — Diving, gutless kinda player. This fact is made worse by his overwhelming skill and ability to hurt his opponents.

Jere Lehtinen — Another ancient player coming off the IR tonight.

James Neal — His wrist shot is Iginla levels of lethal. For real, this kid can shoot the lights out.

Mark Cuban — Everybody hates him.

Because this might not be the trainwreck I think it will be. Enjoy the game and try to avoid schrapnel in the comments section.