After a quick homestand, the Calgary Flames (5-12-3, 13 points) begin a stretch of seven of eight games away from home when they visit the United Center to face the Chicago Blackhawks (9-5-4, 22 points). The last time these two teams clashed, it was a pretty even hockey game for 40 minutes… until Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks pulled away in the third period.

Can the Flames get a measure of revenge for last week’s loss? Or will Bedard and his cohorts continue their winning ways?

Today’s broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich – Nazem Kadri – Joel Farabee
Connor Zary – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – Sam Morton – 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 Dryden Hunt.

The Flames had four pretty consistent lines for awhile, but Sam Honzek’s injury has had a bit of a ripple effect. Sam Morton is up and getting an audition on the fourth line. Yegor Sharangovich is back in the lineup. Connor Zary is starting this game where he finished Saturday’s, on the checking line. And we’ll see if these new lines can find some chemistry.

The Flames have been pretty solid at five-on-five for the majority of the year. Their special teams? Not as much. And if they want to nudge their record towards respectability, they’ll need their power play and penalty kill to get on track.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Ryan Greene – Connor Bedard – Andre Burakovsky
Oliver Moore – Frank Nazar – Teuvo Teravainen
Colton Dach – Ryan Donato – Ilya Mikheyev
Landon Slaggert – Sam Lafferty

Alex Vlasic – Louis Crevier
Wyatt Kaiser – Artyom Levshunov
Matt Grzelcyk – Connor Murphy
Sam Rinzel

We’re projecting Arvid Soderblom to start in net, backed up by Spencer Knight. Via Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio, Jason Dickinson won’t return for this game and Tyler Bertuzzi is trending towards not playing, so Chicago will likely roll with seven defenders and 11 forwards, with no healthy extras.

So, uh, the Blackhawks are starting to get this season. Yeah, they’re still young and a bit leaky defensively, as will happen when you’re a team with young, inexperienced players. But when you have names like Bedard, Nazar, Moore, Vlasic and Levshunov on your roster, the future starts to look pretty bright. And the future may not be far off in Chicago.

The Flames are without Martin Pospisil, Zayne Parekh and Sam Honzek.

The Blackhawks are without Shea Weber, Laurent Brossoit, Jason Dickinson, Tyler Bertuzzi and Nick Foligno.

This is the second of three match-ups between these clubs. Chicago shut the Flames out 4-0 in the Saddledome recently. They close out their season series on Jan. 15 in Chicago.

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