Through four games, the Calgary Flames (0-4-0, 0 points) don’t just have zero wins, but they’re the last team in the NHL remaining without a standings point. They’ll try to turn that around on Saturday night when they face the Anaheim Ducks (3-1-0, 6 points), who are playing a back-to-back (with travel) after a win in Winnipeg on Friday. The Flames are focused on their own house, trying to put together a good outing and, hopefully, a positive result on home ice after a couple ugly ones at the Saddledome.

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and QR Calgary! Tune in for Warmies before the game and After Burner following the game on the Barn Burner YouTube channel!

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Aydar Suniev – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Joel Farabee
Matvei Gridin – Ryan Strome – Maxim Tsyplakov
Jonathan Castagna – Martin Pospisil – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton – Zayne Parekh
Yan Kuznetsov – Zach Whitecloud

The Flames held an optional morning skate, so we’re basing this off guesswork, Danny Austin’s tweet about lines from Friday and Pat Steinberg tweeting about scratches on Saturday morning. We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, continuing the goalie rotation, backed up by Devin Cooley. The Flames’ extras look to be Joel Hanley and Brennan Othmann. Sam Honzek is unavailable on Saturday after picking up an unspecified injury against Colorado. We’ll see how things shake out in warm-up.

The Flames are looking to win a game and play a rock-solid 60 minutes. They’ve lost all four games so far this season and, all due respect, each of their outings had deficiencies that probably resulted in deserved Ls. Their penalty kill has been really solid, fourth in the NHL, but everything else needs some work.

We’ll see if they can put together an improved 60 minutes against the Ducks.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Beckett Sennecke – Leo Carlsson – Sam Colangelo
Nikita Nesterenko – Mikael Granlund – Cutter Gauthier
Alex Killorn – Ryan Poehling – A.J. Greer
Jeff Malott – Tim Washe – Judd Caulfield

Jackson Lacombe – Noah Warren
Pavel Mintyukov – Travis Mitchell
Tyson Hinds – Tristan Luneau

We’re projecting Ville Huuso to start in net, backed up by Lukas Dostal. Their extras on Friday night in Winnipeg were Nick Jensen, Frank Vatrano and Nikita Klepov. It’s a back-to-back, so we’ll see what changes they make.

The Ducks won 5-1 against the Jets on Friday night, then flew to Calgary. They’re winning by committee so far, with 10 different goal-scorers (and three different game-winning goal-scorers) so far. They have depth and youth and their lone loss was a tough game against the Edmonton Oilers that got away from them at home.

They’ll be a tough test for the Flames as their start this home-and-home set.

The Flames are without Jonathan Huberdeau and Sam Honzek.

The Ducks are without Troy Terry, Ian Moore and Drew Helleson.

This is the first of four games between these teams this season. They’ll rematch in Anaheim on Tuesday, then see each other again Nov. 6 in Calgary and Nov. 15 in Anaheim. Yes, like with Seattle, their entire season series with a divisional foe will be done before American Thanksgiving.

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