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After kicking off their regular season schedule on the road on Wednesday night, it’s time for the Calgary Flames (1-0-0, 2 points) to begin their home schedule! And they’ll do it against another youth-filled team that’s coming off a dramatic comeback victory against Vancouver, the Philadelphia Flyers (1-0-0, 2 points).
Tonight’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, Sportsnet One, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. There’s all sorts of pre-game fun and festivities, so aim to arrive early if you can! We’re told to expect a tribute to Johnny Gaudreau that includes 13 seconds of applause. (Good luck keep that contained to that amount of time.)

The Flames

Projected lines via Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg:
Sam Honzek – Nazem Kadri – Andrei Kuzmenko
Jonathan Huberdeau – Martin Pospisil – Anthony Mantha
Connor Zary – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – Justin Kirkland – Adam Klapka
MacKenzie Weegar – Daniil Miromanov
Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Jake Bean – Brayden Pachal
Dustin Wolf is projected to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extra skaters are Matt Coronato, Tyson Barrie and Joel Hanley. It’s the first game as a Flame for Justin Kirkland in his fourth season with the organization.
You can basically split the Flames’ win against Vancouver into two halves: “took too many penalties” and “stopped taking penalties.” When the Flames kept it to five-on-five and was able to roll their lines, even short a forward, they were quite effective and built a ton of momentum. When they get into penalty trouble and disrupt everything, things didn’t go quite as well.

The Flyers

Friday night’s lines courtesy of Charlie O’Connor:
Matvei Michkov – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Owen Tippett – Morgan Frost – Tyson Foerster
Joel Farabee – Jett Luchanko – Bobby Brink
Scott Laughton – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
Cam York – Travis Sanheim
Erik Johnson – Jamie Drysdale
Egor Zamula – Rasmus Ristolainen
Samuel Ersson started in Vancouver, so presumably the Flames see Ivan Fedotov in this one. The extra skaters on Friday night were Emil Andrae, Noah Cates and Nicolas Deslauriers. Given the back-to-back situation, maybe one of them rotates in against the Flames.
The Flyers were as advertised on Friday in Vancouver: feisty and hard-working. Sure, they’re not without some youthful mistakes, but they have a really interesting mix of toolsy, talented veterans and a slew of fascinating youngsters. And, like the Flames, they can be a handful if they’re under-estimated by opponents.

Unavailable players

The Flames are without Yegor Sharangovich and Kevin Rooney.
The Flyers are without Ryan Ellis and Nick Seeler.

The numbers

Flames
Flyers
1
Wins
1
2 (1.000)
Points (%)
2 (1.000)
39.9%
(24th)
xGF%
37.8%
(26th)
33.3%
(7th)
PP%
25.0%
(13th)
50.0%
(27th)
PK%
100%
(6th)

Head to head

This is the first of two meetings between these teams this season. They’ll close out their season series on Mar. 4 in Philadelphia.