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On Sunday, the Calgary Flames (12-8-4, 28 points) hopped on their charter plane and flew east with dreams of a strong road performance going along with them. Now, six days and three games later, they’ll try to head home with a victory when they visit the Pittsburgh Penguins (9-12-4, 22 points). Both teams are playing the back half of back-to-back sets – Calgary lost theirs, Pittsburgh won theirs – and both are desperate to grab two points.
Tonight’s broadcast begins at 5 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

The Flames

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:
Jonathan Huberdeau – Connor Zary – Blake Coleman
Martin Pospisil – Nazem Kadri – Andrei Kuzmenko
Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Rooney – Adam Klapka
Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
MacKenzie Weegar – Daniil Miromanov
Joel Hanley – Brayden Pachal
We’re projecting Dan Vladar to start in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. Friday’s extras were Jake Bean, Tyson Barrie and Adam Klapka. We’re anticipating Klapka will play in place of Justin Kirkland, who left Friday’s game in the first period due to injury, but we’ll see if any blueliners swap in or out.
Compliment sandwich time, friends:
  • The Flames have gotten really consistent, effective goaltending on this road trip – and really, all season.
  • The Flames have really struggled to manage the puck effectively on a consistent basis on this road trip. We’ve seen flashes of really smart play, but we’ve also seen poorly-timed turnovers, odd-man rushes, and a few things that have both undermined the team’s offensive effectiveness and made the goalies’ lives more difficult than needed.
  • The Flames’ power play has scored seven goals over the past six games.
In short: the Flames need to tidy up their five-on-five details, folks.

The Penguins

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:
Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Michael Bunting – Evgeni Malkin – Philip Tomasino
Anthony Beauvillier – Blake Lizotte – Drew O’Connor
Matthew Nieto – Kevin Hayes – Noel Acciari
Marcus Pettersson – Erik Karlsson
Matt Grzelcyk – Kris Letang
Ryan Shea – Jack St. Ivany
We’re projecting Alex Nedeljkovic to start, backed up by Tristan Jarry (who played on Friday against Boston). Friday’s extras were Ryan Graves and Jesse Puljujarvi, so we’ll see if either rotates in given Pittsburgh is also on a back-to-back.
The Penguins are a very odd team. Do they have talent? Heck yes. Do they have the general shape of a team that should be pretty good? Also yes. Have they been pretty good? No. They’ve arguably under-achieved, as the group hasn’t really gelled together as you might have hoped they would going into the season. As a result, it appears that general manager Kyle Dubas has begun tinkering in an effort to get things moving along – most recently acquiring Tomasino from Nashville. We’ll see if things will turn around for these flightless birds this season.

Unavailable players

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha and Justin Kirkland.
The Penguins are without Cody Glass and Owen Pickering.

The numbers

Flames
Penguins
12
Wins
9
28 (.583)
Points (%)
22 (.440)
48.5%
(21st)
xGF%
51.2%
(14th)
20.6%
(13th)
PP%
20.3%
(15th)
73.0%
(28th)
PK%
79.7%
(15th)

Head to head

This is the finale of this season series. The Flames beat Pittsburgh in a shootout back in October.