Pre-Season FGD: Getting Kraken in Kent (8pm MT)

Just over 24 hours after capturing their first pre-season win of this campaign, the Calgary Flames are back in action and out for a measure of exhibition revenge when they visit Kent, Washington to face the Seattle Kraken! (Kent is the home of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds.)

The puck drops just after 8 p.m. MT and the game can be heard on Sportsnet 960 The Fan. There’s no stream tonight.

The Flames’ game group won’t skate today, instead heading straight for the airport for a trip to Washington state today. So we don’t have lines, but we have the travelling roster:

It’ll be the fourth pre-season appearance for a lot of players: Mackey, Ritchie, Dube, Zadorov, Kylington, Duehr, Valimaki, Froese, Gawdin, Kirkland and Vladar. That should give you a sense of who the coaching staff and management is trying to evaluate right now.

The Flames have looked progressively more cohesive over the past four games, with their group on Friday night in Calgary looking quite good at times. Their stars have looked the part, and the challenge may be now finding the right depth mix to compliment their skill-sets.

Like the Flames, Seattle is playing their second game in as many nights in as many cities. Granted, they’re going from Everett (home of the WHL’s Silvertips) to Kent (home of the WHL’s Thunderbirds), so the trek isn’t quite as long as Calgary’s.

The Kraken beat the Oilers 2-1 last night off goals from Jared McCann and Jaden Schwartz, so expect a somewhat different group given the back-to-back scenario. (They only have 36 players under active NHL contracts, so there will be some overlap.) Suffice it to say, though, that the scrappy Kraken will be chomping at the bit to hand the Flames another loss, even if it is only the pre-season.

After the deluge that Seattle gave the Flames early in Calgary on Wednesday, keep an eye on the Flames’ netminders. Calgary has four goaltenders in camp, and you could make a strong argument that they’re their four top goaltenders: Jacob Markstrom, Adam Werner, Dan Vladar and Dustin Wolf. So far, the internal slotting seems to be Markstrom and Vladar in Calgary and Werner and Wolf in Stockton. Can Vladar cement the number-two gig tonight? And can Wolf make a case for the top gig in Stockton?