Preseason Gameday Update – September 29th

A fairly veteran squad has landed in Saskatoon for the Calgary Flames who will take on the New York Islanders in exhibition action tonight (7 pm, Rogers Sportsnet Flames and The FAN 960).  22 players made the trip, and with no morning skate today, we won’t know till pregame warmup what we’re looking at in terms of lines, lineup etc.

We know who’s making the trip, so here’s what we’re looking at:

John Armstrong, Mikael Backlund, Craig Conroy, Cam Cunning, Curtis Glencross, Niklas Hagman, Raitis Ivanans, Tim Jackman, Ales Kotalik, Stefan Meyer, David Moss, Greg Nemisz, Jon Rheault

T.J. Brodie, Mark Giordano, Staffan Kronwall, Adam Pardy, Matt Pelech, Cory Sarich, Ian White

Miikka Kiprusoff, Leland Irving

It’s safe to assume the line of Kotalik and Glencross flanking Moss will be deployed once again tonight, as those three did not play in Calgary’s win over the Coyotes on Tuesday night.  The other centres will be Conroy, Meyer and Backlund.  Brodie saw time with Cory Sarich on Saturday night against Tampa, but was paired with Adam Pardy last night, so that will also be something to watch.

The Islanders lineup should look like this:

Blake Comeau-John Tavares-PA Parenteau
Josh Bailey-Rob Schremp-Nino Niederreiter
Matt Martin-David Ullstrom-Trent Hunter
Trevor Gillies-Zenon Konopka-Rhett Rakhshani

Mark Eaton-James Wisniewski
Andrew MacDonald-Radek Martinek
Calvin de Haan-Milan Jurcina

The goalies will be Rick DiPietro and Miiko Koskinen.  The Isles have been ravaged by injuries over the last couple days, losing forward Kyle Okposo and defenceman Mark Streit longterm.  It’s not an overly impressive New York lineup, but even their regular season doesn’t promise to be that good.

We’ll update everything as soon as we know.