On Thursday night, the Calgary Flames (5-12-2, 12 points) looked strong against a fairly listless San Jose side and shut them out 2-0. They’ll try to build on that outing when they host the Winnipeg Jets (10-7-0, 20 points), who are finishing off a six game road trip and are probably fantasizing about sleeping in their own damn beds at this point.

The Flames have won once in their last four games. The Jets have won once in their last five games. Somebody will leave the Scotiabank Saddledome happy. But who?

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on CBC, Sportsnet’s national feed, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

Yan Kuznetsov – MacKenzie Weegar
Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Jake Bean – Brayden Pachal

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The projected extra skaters look to be Joel Hanley and Yegor Sharangovich. We’re not anticipating any changes from the Flames’ lineup from Thursday night’s shutout win over San Jose.

So what worked against San Jose? Quite a bit. The Flames looked fast and played fast. They forechecked well. They didn’t make many puck management miscues. They got good goaltending. Heck, they held San Jose to just six shots over the first 40 minutes. The Flames were unlucky enough to only score once on Yaroslav Askarov, but that’s honestly a decent reflection of where they’re getting chances on the ice. If they can replicate Thursday’s effort but add in some additional screens and deflections in front of the net, perhaps they can start piling up goals.

In a related note, the difference between the Flames’ power play and the NHL’s average power play (which converts on 20.8% of its advantages) is 6.3 goals.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Kyle Connor – Mark Scheifele – Gabriel Vilardi
Vladislav Namestnikov – Jonathan Toews – Cole Perfetti
Nino Niederreiter – Adam Lowry – Alex Iafallo
Tanner Pearson – Parker Ford – Gustav Nyquist

Josh Morrissey – Dylan DeMelo
Dylan Samberg – Neal Pionk
Logan Stanley – Luke Schenn

We’re projecting Connor Hellebuyck in net, backed up by Eric Comrie. The projected extra skaters are Brad Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov and Colin Miller.

The Jets last played at home back on Nov. 1. Since then, they’ve made stops in Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose, Vancouver and Seattle… and won just a single game, beating the Canucks on Tuesday night. Winnipeg’s game just isn’t balanced right now, as they’re not scoring the way they’re used to, they’re not as defensively stout as they usually are, and their goaltending hasn’t been able to cover up for their miscues.

But the Jets have had some good showings against the Flames, and they’re probably looking to finish off their road trip on a positive note.

The Flames are without Martin Pospisil and Zayne Parekh.

The Jets are without Haydn Fleury, Morgan Barron and Cole Koepke.

This is, somehow, the finale of the three-game season series. Yes, in the 20th game of the season. The Jets won each of the first two meetings. They’re going for the sweep on Saturday night.

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