Winners of two consecutive games, the Calgary Flames (4-9-2, 10 points) will attempt to stretch their streak to three games on Friday evening when they welcome the Chicago Blackhawks (6-5-3, 15 points) to the Scotiabank Saddledome!

The Flames got off to a rough start to the season, winning just once in their first nine games. But since then they’ve gone 3-2-1, which is actually fairly good. Can the Flames keep this run going? Or will Connor Bedard put a stop to it?

Today’s broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

Kevin Bahl* – Rasmus Andersson
Joel Hanley – MacKenzie Weegar
Brayden Pachal – Zayne Parekh

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The projected extras are Jake Bean, Yan Kuznetsov and Justin Kirkland. Zayne Parekh returns to the lineup after being a spectator against Columbus. Via Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg, head coach Ryan Huska indicated that Kevin Bahl (who missed morning skate due to maintenance) is a game-time decision. Kuznetsov skated in his place, so he would likely slot in if Bahl can’t go.

The Flames played a good game on Wednesday and won. They played a pretty good game on Sunday – albeit a boring one – and won. If you look at their body of work over the past two or three weeks, they’re starting to find their stride and their collective confidence again after being, well, quite rough early on. We’ll see if the Flames can keep things going against Chicago, but they’ve dug a pretty big hole for themselves in the standings already.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

We’re projecting Spencer Knight to start in net, backed up by Arvid Soderblom. Their projected extra is Sam Lafferty.

Guess what? Connor Bedard is really good at hockey. He has 18 points through 14 games this season. But four other Blackhawks are also in double-digits for points. They’re rapidly becoming a team that can out-score their flaws… and that’s good, because they’re still a young team with some flaws. But when you have a few strong offensive producers, you can work around your flaws.

The Flames are without Martin Pospisil.

The Blackhawks are without Laurent Brossoit, Jason Dickinson and Shea Weber.

This is the first of three games between these two teams this season. They’ll meet twice more, both in Chicago, on Nov. 18 and Jan. 15.

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