It’s almost time to raise the curtain on the 2026-27 National Hockey League season. But first? One more exhibition game for the Calgary Flames, as they’ll dress their NHL roster and head up Highway 2 to face the Edmonton Oilers, also dressing their NHL roster. Which team can knock the rust off and get some bragging rights on their side heading into the regular season?

The game starts just after 7 p.m. MT, with the Flames site and app streaming the game regionally and the call over the airwaves on QR Calgary! (They have a 90-minute pre-game show on QR Calgary starting at 5:30 p.m. MT!)

This is the fourth and final exhibition game for the Flames. They lost 4-2 to Seattle on Sunday, won 3-1 over Vancouver on Tuesday, and lost 4-3 to Seattle in a shootout on Thursday. The NHL group played against Vancouver, while the AHL group got both games against the Kraken.

Here are projected lines for this evening via QR Calgary’s Pat Steinberg:

Matvei Gridin – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Sam Honzek – Mikael Backlund – Joel Farabee
Connor Zary – Ryan Strome – Yegor Sharangovich
Maxim Tsyplakov – Martin Pospisil – Adam Klapka

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

Dustin Wolf is expected to start in net and go the distance, backed up by Kirill Zarubin. (Opening day backup Devin Cooley has already played his two pre-season games, as have Brayden Pachal, Joel Hanley and Alex Nylander.)

The Flames have had pretty consistent practice and game lines throughout this camp. Their big-leaguers looked pretty solid against Vancouver, and they’ll obviously face a tougher test against Edmonton’s big guns. It’ll be interesting to see how head coach Ryan Huska runs his group through their paces given the quality of competition.

The Oilers have played three pre-season games. They have three wins.

Via Bob Stauffer, projected Edmonton lines:

Vasili Podkolzin – Connor McDavid – Leon Draisaitl
Isaac Howard – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Zach Hyman
Josh Samanski* – Trent Frederic – Kasperi Kapanen
Alex Formenton – Colton Dach – Mathieu Joseph

Mattias Ekholm – Evan Bouchard
Jake Walman – Connor Murphy
Ryan Shea – Shakir Mukhamadullin

Devon Levi is projected to start, backed up by Matt Tomkins. (Max Jones skated on the left side of the third line in practice, but he’s already played twice, so either Samanski or Owen Michaels will likely slot in.)

So… uh… Edmonton has some good, fun players. When Zach Hyman is a team’s third or fourth best player, they’re objectively a good team. Even when they’re going half-speed in the pre-season, they’re a handful.

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