On Thursday night, the Calgary Flames (23-16-7, 53 points) began a stretch of 10 games over 17 days as they head towards the 4 Nations Face-Off break. They will continue this torrid stretch of games on Saturday night when they visit the Minnesota Wild (28-16-4, 60 points) in the first half of a back-to-back set. Can the Flames keep the good times rolling and pad their lead for the final Western Conference wildcard playoff spot?

Tonight’s broadcast begins at 5 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Sportsnet’s Derek Wills:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Nazem Kadri – Jakob Pelletier
Blake Coleman – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Ryan Lomberg – Yegor Sharangovich – Martin Pospisil
Clark Bishop – Kevin Rooney – Andrei Kuzmenko

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

It’s a back-to-back with travel, so we’re presuming the plan stays the same: Dustin Wolf starting the first half, backed up by Dan Vladar (who will probably start on Sunday in Winnipeg). The projected extras look to be Jake Bean and Rory Kerins. The lines stay more or less how they finished on Thursday, but with Rooney swapping in for Kerins.

The Flames won on Thursday night against Buffalo for three reasons: (1) Dustin Wolf was really good. (2) Jakob Pelletier was really good. (3) Head coach Ryan Huska, who typically shuffles lines in the third period, didn’t wait after not liking his group’s energy and shuffled his lines in the second period, placing Pelletier on the top unit and triggering the comeback win. We’ll see what the lines look like

The Flames enter Saturday’s action three points up on both Vancouver and St. Louis for the final wildcard playoff spot in the West. They have a game in hand on Vancouver and three in hand on St. Louis. They are in control of their own destiny right now, and so the challenge will be to avoid lengthy dips and just… do their thing. Through 46 games, what they’ve done has worked. If it continues to work for 36 more, there will be Stanley Cup playoff hockey at the Saddledome this spring. Just like everyone expected.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Kirill Kaprizov – Marco Rossi – Mats Zuccarello
Matt Boldy – Joel Eriksson Ek – Ryan Hartman
Liam Ohgren – Freddie Gaudreau – Marcus Foligno
Jakub Lauko – Marat Knusnutdinov – Yakov Trenin

Jacob Middleton – Brock Faber
Declan Chisholm – Jared Spurgeon
Jon Merrill – Zach Bogosian

The legendary Marc-Andre Fleury starts for the Wild, backed up by Filip Gustavsson. The projected extras are Devin Shore and Travis Dermott.

The Wild are a really good team, but they’ve been merely fine at home, rocking a .500 record after Thursday’s shutout loss to Utah. Just for some reason, their luck has been against them at Xcel Energy Center and they’ve found ways to lose. But they’re a team that boasts talent at every position, and has Kirill Kaprizov, one of the top players in the damn world.

The Wild not a team that’s playing to their potential right now. But they really feel like a sleeping giant with an alarm clock that could wake them up at any moment.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha, Justin Kirkland and Connor Zary. Tyson Barrie is with the Wranglers on a conditioning stint.

The Wild are without Marcus Johansson and Jonas Brodin.

This is the second game of three games between the Flames and Wild this season. The Flames beat the Wild in a shootout back in November. They’ll close out their season series in April.