If there’s one thing you can say for Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Huska, it’s that he’s not afraid to make changes to his lineup if he’s not seeing what he wants to see from his existing lines or pairings.
On Thursday night in Boston, the Flames rallied back from a 3-1 deficit after two periods to earn a point via a 4-3 overtime loss to the Bruins. At Friday’s practice in Buffalo, as noted by Sportsnet’s Derek Wills on social media, Huska made some tweaks to his top two forward lines.
Following Anthony Mantha’s injury in Montreal, on Thursday we saw Nazem Kadri centring Connor Zary and Andrei Kuzmenko, while Yegor Sharangovich played centre between Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil. Per Wills, on Friday Kadri was joined by Zary and Sharangovich, with Pospisil moving to centre between Huberdeau and Kuzmenko.
Via Flames TV, Wills asked Huska about the change to the top two lines following practice.
“You know, there wasn’t much going on offensively for our top two lines last night until late in the game,” said Huska. “So we talked about it between periods to see if we made a certain shift, what it would look like. So we had a chance to see them in a brief practice today and then we’ll make a decision later tonight as to where we’re going to go.”
The other two forward lines – Mikael Backlund between Blake Coleman & Matt Coronato and Kevin Rooney between Ryan Lomberg & Justin Kirkland – weren’t changed.
Kadri, Zary and Sharangovich haven’t played as a unit this season, but they played 71:32 together at five-on-five last season with mixed results – per Natural Stat Trick, they were out-scored 7-4 and out-chanced 39-33, but they generated more shots, expected goals and high-danger chances than their opponents. Huberdeau, Pospisil and Kuzmenko have barely played together at all as a unit, with just 1:19 of five-on-five time together since last season.
Huska’s line tweaks also return Pospisil to centre, and continue the club’s exploration of whether he or Sharangovich can play up the middle with regularity. Pospisil began the season at centre and has won 38.3% of 81 face-offs, while Sharangovich has won 49.4% of 81 draws. While neither player has been especially poor playing at centre, neither has excelled either, so the experimentation continues.
The Flames conclude their three game road trip with a matinee on Saturday in Buffalo.
