After a travel day back from Las Vegas on Friday, the Calgary Flames returned to the Scotiabank Saddledome for practice on Saturday morning as they prepare to host the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday evening.

Here’s what we saw at the rink.

The Flames had 23 players on the ice: three goaltenders (including emergency backup Dustin Nickel), seven defencemen and 13 forwards. Not on the ice, and not expected to be, were injured forwards Sam Honzek and Jonathan Huberdeau – though both players still have stalls in the Flames’ locker room.

Here’s how the lines and pairings looked:

Aydar Suniev – Morgan Frost – Yegor Sharangovich
Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome
Maxim Tsyplakov – Jonathan Castagna & Brennan Othmann rotating – Adam Klapka

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

Dustin Wolf was in the home net
Devin Cooley was in the away net

Sharangovich and Coronato have swapped lines, while Middleton and Kuznetsov have swapped pairings. Based on Castagna and Othmann rotating, we’re thinking that Castagna may still be in Sunday’s line-up – we’re not sure if Othmann has ever played centre as a pro – but we’ll see on Sunday.

The Flames skated for the first time with their black pants, gloves and helmets. The reason? They need them for their 2004 throwback jerseys. The Flames will wear their 2004 jerseys four times this season, with the first one being next Saturday at home against Detroit.

Dustin Wolf was the only one of the three goalies on the ice wearing black pants… and he was breaking in all new gear. His new set, featuring a mask and full pad set, is an homage to Flames legend Miikka Kiprusoff, including a custom mask and custom pads virtually identical to Kiprusoff’s 2004 playoff gear.

Wolf definitely understood the assignment. He was inspired to do the tribute when he found out about the 2004 jersey awhile back, and his mask artist, Travis Michael, reached out to Kiprusoff’s old artist, Todd Miska, to get the green light for the tribute mask.