When I was a wee lad, the annual “tradition” games were the Calgary Flames hosting the Montreal Canadiens on New Year’s Eve and the New Jersey Devils on Halloween. Well, we’re a week late, but the Flames (7-6-0) host the Devils tonight at the Scotiabank Saddledome. It may look more like Christmas outside than Halloween, but we’ll take what we can get.

The Devils (9-3-0) played in Edmonton in Friday night and dropped a 6-3 decision to the Edmonton Oilers. But they’re one of the NHL’s hottest outfits this season, surprisingly, and the Flames will need to be sharp to continue their winning ways.

The puck drops at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet 960 The Fan and Sportsnet 360.

Here are tonight’s projected lines, courtesy of Daily Faceoff:

To the shock of nobody, Mike Smith gets the start. He’s 7-5-0 with a 2.19 goals against average and .934 save percentage. The extra bodies look to be Rasmus Andersson, Tanner Glass and Freddie Hamilton. Matt Bartkowski draws back into the lineup playing the right side of the third pairing, while Travis Hamonic’s injury bumps Michael Stone into the second pairing.

With no Hamonic tonight, expect to see a lot of the top four – at five on five and on special teams. It will be extremely helpful tonight if the Flames take no penalties, as it’ll make it a bit easier to roll pairings and lines and keep their third pairing in a regular rotation.

Also, per Cassie Campbell:

Projected New Jersey lines via Daily Faceoff:

The starter tonight is Keith Kinkaid, who’s 3-1-0 with a 2.62 goals against average and a .910 save percentage. If you’re asking yourself “Hey, is he actually that good?” the answer is unclear. The entire Devils team has been superb to start the year, though their team has a 103 PDO right now and their shooting percentage is quite high. They’re probably due for a correction at some point, but they’re definitely good. (Stefan Noesen and Ben Lovejoy are likely the healthy scratches tonight.)

The key to New Jersey’s success? Speed. They’re a fast forechecking team and they’re fast on their puck transitions. The Flames will need to continue to have their forwards come deep into the defensive zone to assist with getting the puck out of their own end and into the offensive side of the ice. If they don’t, it could look a lot like their loss to Carolina.

Flames: Daniel Pribyl (knee), Jaromir Jagr (lower-body) and Travis Hamonic (lower-body) are on the injured reserve.

New Jersey: Kyle Palmieri (foot) and Travis Zajac (undisclosed) are on the injured reserve. Marcus Johansson (upper-body) is injured but still on the active roster.

Calgary and New Jersey split their two meetings last season. Both games were close and the road team won each game – a 2-1 Devils win in Calgary and a 4-3 Flames shootout win in New Jersey.

Here are a few people, primarily journalists, that tweet about the New Jersey Devils:

The Flames face yet another Eastern Conference foe and yet another backup goaltender. That said, the Devils are rested and likely smarting after a loss in Edmonton. Expect them to come out of the gates strong. The Flames will need to be sharp and to likely weather an early storm if they’re going to capture another victory.