After starting their road trip with a loss in Toronto, the Calgary Flames (2-8-1, 5 points) are back in action and looking to get back to the win column when they head to Canada’s capital region to face the Ottawa Senators (5-5-1, 11 points). The Flames have played five pretty decent games in a row, but have just three points to show for it. Can they bounce back from Tuesday’s loss to the Leafs against the Senators?

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

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Nazem Kadri – Morgan Frost
Sam Honzek – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Joel Farabee – Yegor Sharangovich – Matt Coronato
Ryan Lomberg – Justin Kirkland – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Joel Hanley – MacKenzie Weegar
Jake Bean – Brayden Pachal

Devin Cooley is projected to start, backed up by Dustin Wolf. It was an optional morning skate for the Flames. Head coach Ryan Huska indicated there will be a couple changes to the lineup but didn’t offer specifics. Connor Zary and Zayne Parekh were on late with Wolf after morning skate, so that may be a clue.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the Flames have lost many games, but they’re not a bad hockey team. They’ve been a team that plays structurally sound hockey, but that makes bad mistakes at bad times. Case in point? On Tuesday in Toronto, three own-zone turners led to three of Toronto’s four goals. They played well enough to win. They scored enough goals to win. But they made too many mistakes.

The devil’s in the details, folks. And the Flames need to figure out the details of their game. And fast.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff (and TSN’s Claire Hanna):

We’re projecting Linus Ullmark to start in net, backed up by Leevi Merilainen. The projected extras are Nikolas Matinpalo and Olle Lycksell.

The Senators have won three of their past four games. Their last three games have been eventful: they lost 7-3 in Chicago on Tuesday, and that came on the heels of a 7-2 win on Monday and a 7-1 win on Saturday. It definitely seems like there’s the potential for a lot of goals, one way or another, in this game.

The Flames are without Martin Pospisil.

The Senators are without Brady Tkachuk.

This is the first of two games between these teams this season. They’ll close out the season series in Calgary in March.

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