Welcome to the Game Day Fire Drill, for this, Calgary’s 63rd game of the season on March 3, 2010.

So these are the Flames going forward. How you feelin’ about them?

What’s that you say? You’re feeling worse today than you were yesterday? Samesies on this end. And that brings us to tonight’s game, which Miikka Kiprusoff will be starting, backed up by… Matt Keetley? Never heard of that guy. On the other hand, the good news is that Steve Staios will not be available for tonight’s game, so that’s one less game with him on the roster.

Look, I’m not some kind of stat genius like Kent who knows all about quality of competition and shot plus-minus per 60 minutes or whatever they’ll think of next (I’m waiting for someone to write a book about hockey that’s like Baseball Between the Numbers so I can start to understand these mathematical concepts, but alas). I do, however, still know plenty about hockey, and certainly enough to understand that Darryl Sutter was on the wrong end of the kind of trades that get rejected by the computer in NHL 10, and that caused opposing GMs to say, "Hey Darryl can I put you on hold for a sec?" before breaking out into uproarious, ROFLMFAO-type hysterics.

Looking at these deals, I honestly don’t know what the plan is any more. The team still has huge problems putting the actual puck in the actual net, and in its own zone. None of these trades address that, or do anything close to it. Hell, even in terms of picks, the Flames gave up a mid-round third and got a slightly-later-round fourth back.

Oh yeah, the Wild tonight. That should be a riot, huh? I heard the Flames are giving away paper bags to the first 10,000 fans tonight so they don’t have to be seen watching this… thing. However, if said fans are smart, they will ask to swap out paper for plastic.

*remembers he has tickets to the Flames/Bruins game in Boston later this month* Oh hell. 

The Calgary Flames (30-23-9 for 69 points. Ninth in the West, third in the Northwest) and the Minnesota Wild (30-27-4 for 64 points. Thirteenth in the West, fourth in the Northwest).

8 p.m. Mountain time and 10 p.m. Eastern time. All other time zones should look at Sutter Frog.

Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta.

Calgary is 15-14-3 at home this year, which is a dazzling number. The Wild are 9-19-2 on the road, but one of those wins came in….. you guessed it: Calgary.

Their GM didn’t trade for Vesa Toskala today — No, he actually entered the season with two goalies with whom he was comfortable. What a novel concept!

Their GM didn’t trade for Steve Staios today — Seriously, what the hell, man?

Their GM isn’t Darryl Sutter — Ohhhhh that explains it.

Because after this one the season will be incrementally closer to its conclusion. Enjoy the game and cry yourself to sleep in the comments section.