Normally, the Calgary Flames (12-7-4, 28 points) play the Columbus Blue Jackets (9-9-3, 21 points) twice during the season and the games aren’t of much consequence to either team – neither is a big rival of each other and there’s virtually no shared history. But the two teams will meet twice this week – on Friday afternoon in Columbus and Tuesday night in Calgary – in a pair of games that will undoubtedly carry much more emotion than usual due to the tragic deaths of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau at the end of August.

Today’s broadcast begins at 1 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Connor Zary – Blake Coleman
Martin Pospisil – Nazem Kadri – Andrei Kuzmenko
Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Rooney – Justin Kirkland

Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
MacKenzie Weegar – Daniil Miromanov
Joel Hanley – Brayden Pachal

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras are Jake Bean, Tyson Barrie and Adam Klapka. There’s no morning skate for this game due to the early start, so we’ll update with whatever emerges from warm-up.

The Flames are playing the third game of a four game eastern road trip. So far, they’ve lost twice: on Monday in regulation in Ottawa and on Wednesday in overtime in Detroit. They’re closing their trip out with today’s game in Columbus and Saturday evening in Pittsburgh. They remain firmly in the Western Conference playoff picture and have a slew of home games ahead of them on the schedule, but they need to get their road record (3-4-4) up to par if they want to maintain their prominent spot in the standings.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Dmitri Voronkov – Sean Monahan – Kirill Marchenko
Cole Sillinger – Adam Fantilli – Kent Johnson
Zach Aston-Reese – Justin Danforth – Mathieu Olivier
James van Riemsdyk – Sean Kuraly – Kevin Labanc

Zach Werenski – Dante Fabbro
Ivan Provorov – Damon Severson
Jake Christiansen – Jordan Harris

We’re projecting Elvis Merzlikins to start in net, backed up by Daniil Tarasov. The projected extra is Jack Johnson. Cole Sillinger is expected to return from an injury, but Yegor Chinakhov is questionable.

Highly recommend checking out the work that Postmedia’s Wes Gilbertson and Sportsnet’s Eric Francis have been filing from Columbus, as they’re capturing a lot of the emotion around this game for both teams. You’ve got to hand it to the Jackets for how well they’ve handled this unimaginable situation, and how we’ll they’ve been playing despite a slew of injuries.

We’re sure that a ton of Flames fans will be rooting Sean Monahan on this season, regardless of which team he’s playing against. He’s off to a fantastic start, with 20 points over his first 21 games as a Blue Jacket.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha.

The Blue Jackets are without Erik Gudbranson, Boone Jenner and Gavin Brindley.

This is the first of two meetings between these teams this season. They’ll conclude their season series in Calgary on Dec. 3.