For the third time in the past four days, the Calgary Flames (1-1-0) play hockey on Saturday! And they kick off the second-to-last season of National Hockey League games at the Saddledome when they face the St. Louis Blues (0-1-0) in a matinee clash.

The Flames missed the playoffs on tiebreakers in 2024-25, with the Blues making the post-season dance by virtue of a pair of regulation wins in January. Can the Flames get a measure of revenge and bounce back from a split result over their first two road games? Let’s find out!

Today’s broadcast begins at 2 p.m. MT on Sportsnet’s national feed and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Thursday’s lines via Daily Faceoff:

Matvei Gridin – Nazem Kadri – Matt Coronato
Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Yegor Sharangovich
Connor Zary – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – Justin Kirkland – Adam Klapka

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

The Flames travelled back from Vancouver on Friday and didn’t skate on Saturday because of the early start, so we’re left to make guesses and educated assumptions regarding Saturday’s lineup – we’ll get a better idea at warm-up. We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. Thursday’s extras were Zayne Parekh, Daniil Miromanov and Sam Honzek.

Kevin Bahl left Thursday’s game after being struck in the head by a puck and didn’t return. We don’t have any indication yet of his status for Saturday’s game. Everyone was accounted for at Friday night’s Wranglers game in Colorado, so if Bahl is unavailable, we would see Parekh or Miromanov slot in. But again: we don’t know very much about Bahl’s status, so as far as we know he could be good to go.

The Flames were quite good for half of both Wednesday and Thursday’s games. They won once and lost once. Based on their body of work, their record is probably a fair reflection of the state of things. We’ll see if they can put together a more complete 60 minutes on home ice against the Blues.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Pavel Buchnevich – Robert Thomas – Jimmy Snuggerud
Dylan Holloway – Brayden Schenn – Jordan Kyrou
Jake Neighbours – Pius Suter – Alexandre Texier
Mathieu Joseph – Nick Bjugstad – Nathan Walker

Cam Fowler – Colton Parayko
Philip Broberg – Justin Faulk
Tyler Tucker – Logan Mailloux

We’re projecting Jordan Binnington to start, backed up by Joel Hofer. Their projected extra skater is Matthew Kessel.

The Blues got walloped by Minnesota by a 5-0 score in their home-opener earlier this week. They played okay, but the Wild buried their chances and the Blues didn’t. They’ll be motivated, energetic and cranky as they try to spoil the Flames’ home-opener.

The Flames are without Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil. (Kevin Bahl’s availability for this game is unclear.)

The Blues are without Alexei Toropchenko, Oskar Sundqvist and Torey Krug.

This is the first of three games between the Flames and Blues this season. They’ll meet again in St. Louis on Nov. 11 and one more time in Calgary on Mar. 18.

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