Pre-Season FGD: The Battle of Alberta (7pm MT, Flames.com stream)

We’re into the meat of the 2021 pre-season calendar, friends, and now the Calgary Flames’ roster is down to 31 (and the healthy roster is below 30) and we get a sense of how game-ready the club looks. It’s time for the second pre-season installment of the Battle of Alberta, this time with the Almost-Flames facing off against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place.

Puck drop is just after 7 p.m. MT and you can catch the action on Sportsnet 960 The Fan and streamed on the Flames website.

Lines for tonight, via Derek Wills:

Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk
Mangiapane – Monahan – Lewis
Dube – Backlund – Ritchie
Lucic – Richardson – Duehr

Hanifin – Andersson
Zadorov – Tanev
Kylington – Gudbranson

In goal, Jacob Markstrom starts and is backed up by Dan Vladar. Connor Zary, Johannes Kinnvall and Tyler Pitlick remain injured and unavailable to play. Healthy scratches look to be Adam Werner, Connor Mackey, Juuso Valimaki, Michael Stone, Blake Coleman, Byron Froese, Glenn Gawdin and Justin Kirkland.

It’s largely the NHL group, except with no Pitlick and no Coleman. Walker Duehr gets another game in, which is a nice hat-tip to him for his superb camp thus far. It’ll be interesting to see which pairings show chemistry and which don’t: Tanev seems to have chemistry with everyone, while Gudbranson has yet to show it with his partners thus far.

It’ll be pre-season game number five for Kylington, Ritchie, Dube, Zadorov, Duehr and Vladar.

Lines, via our pal Jason Gregor:

Hyman – McDavid – Puljujarvi
Nugent-Hopkins – Draisaitl – Yamamoto
Foegele – Ryan – Kassian
Perlini – Shore – Turris

Nurse – Barrie
Keith – Ceci
Koekkoek – Bouchard

Mikko Koskinen starts for the Oilers, likely backed up by Stuart Skinner. (Mike Smith is reportedly dealing with a minor injury.)

Keep your eyeballs peeled for how Noah Hanifin and Sean Monahan look. Both are coming off pretty significant off-season surgeries and the Flames’ success this season may be contingent on how close to 100% those two gentlemen are this season.