After a tight loss to Detroit on Saturday night, the Calgary Flames (25-19-7, 57 points) are back in action and hoping to get back into the win column when they visit the Seattle Kraken (23-27-3, 49 points). The Flames enter Sunday’s action one point up on Vancouver for the final Western Conference wildcard playoff spot. Both the Flames and Vancouver are playing on Sunday night.

Tonight’s broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, Ontario, East and One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan. (Sportsnet Pacific has Vancouver vs. Detroit.)

Projected lines via Sportsnet’s Derek Wills:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Nazem Kadri – Joel Farabee
Blake Coleman – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Martin Pospisil
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Rooney – Adam Klapka

Joel Hanley – Rasmus Andersson
Jake Bean – MacKenzie Weegar
Daniil Miromanov – Brayden Pachal

With the back-to-back, we’re expecting Dan Vladar to start for the Flames, backed up by Dustin Wolf. The extras on Saturday were Kevin Rooney and Daniil Miromanov. Per Sportsnet’s Derek Wills: Rooney comes in for Clark Bishop, while Miromanov slots in for Tyson Barrie.

This is the Flames’ seventh back-to-back set this season, and their sixth “scheduled loss” – a game where the Flames have played the night before and they’re facing a rested opponent. The Flames have lost all five previous scheduled losses, with Vladar in net for all of them. Quick turnarounds are the reality of the modern NHL, and every team needs to figure out how to pick up points on the back halves of them. In the entire NHL, only four teams have lower points percentages than the Flames on the second game of back-to-backs: Seattle, Detroit, Columbus and Philadelphia.

The Flames had some good looks against Detroit, but a combination of tough puck luck and some poor execution got in their way; head coach Ryan Huska post-game compared it to their recent home loss to Washington where they played well, but couldn’t get rewarded offensively. We’ll see if the Flames can buck their recent trend and find some more scoring against Seattle.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Jaden Schwartz – Matty Beniers – Kaapo Kakko
Eeli Tolvanen – Chandler Stephenson – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Jared McCann – Shane Wright – Andre Burakovsky
Tye Kartye – Mitchell Stephens – Brandon Tanev

Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura – Cale Fleury

We’re projecting Joey Daccord to start in net, backed up by Ales Stezka. The Kraken aren’t carrying any healthy extras – their closest is blueliner Ryker Evans, who’s nursing a minor injury at last note.

The Kraken have been fighting it a little bit this season. They have a pretty interesting team, with a nice mix of youth and experience, speed and skill. They’re not a bad hockey team. But they just haven’t found a way to have enough of their team game working to rattle off a bunch of wins. As such, they sit outside of the playoff mix in the Western Conference. But they’re a team that can easily play spoiler for teams that have playoff aspirations.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha, Justin Kirkland, Connor Zary and Kevin Bahl.

The Kraken are without Jordan Eberle, Yanni Gourde and Ryker Evans.

This is the second of four games between these clubs during the regular season. The Flames lost to Seattle in overtime back in October. They play again in Calgary on Saturday – the last game for both teams before the 4 Nations Face-Off break – and close things out in late March.