The holiday preparations are almost complete! Trees are trimmed! Stockings are hung! And before it’s time to kick back with egg nog and Muppet Christmas specials, the Calgary Flames (15-11-7, 37 points) have one last piece of business to take care of: a matinee with the Chicago Blackhawks (12-19-2, 26 points). The Flames are 1-1-2 on this homestand; can they pick up a win and head into the break with some momentum?

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

Projected lines via Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg:

Jonathan Huberdeau – Nazem Kadri – Martin Pospisil
Yegor Sharangovich – Connor Zary – Jakob Pelletier
Blake Coleman – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Rooney – Walker Duehr

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

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras are Andrei Kuzmenko, Daniil Miromanov and Tyson Barrie.

Through eight games in December, the Flames are 3-2-3. But let’s break down those games by “category”:

All-in-all, aside from the third periods against Dallas and Tampa Bay, the Flames have played pretty well this month. It’s nearly late December and they’re still hanging around the playoff picture, though they’ve slid back to 10th in both points and points percentage heading into Saturday’s action. They need to keep stringing good outings – and points – together if they want to remain in the playoff conversation.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Nick Foligno – Connor Bedard – Ryan Donato
Taylor Hall – Frank Nazar – Tyler Bertuzzi
Teuvo Teravainen – Jason Dickinson – Ilya Mikheyev
Pat Maroon – Lukas Reichel – Joey Anderson

Alex Vlasic – Louis Crevier
Nolan Allan – Connor Murphy
Kevin Korchinski – TJ Brodie

We’re projecting Petr Mrazek to start in net, backed up by Arvid Soderblom. Their projected extra is Philip Kurashev. Seth Jones practised with the team on Friday and seems like he’s close to a return.

Chicago is 4-6-0 in December, with Teuvo Teravainen scoring on a point-per-game pace this month. More recently, the Blackhawks are on a three game winning streak and are 4-3-0 overall since bringing in Anders Sorensen as their new head coach. Part of Chicago’s resurgence (of sorts) is probably the “new coach bump,” but they have a team with a lot of interesting pieces. Maybe they can cohere into something greater than the sum of their parts.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha and Justin Kirkland.

The Blackhawks are without Laurent Brossoit, Seth Jones, Alec Martinez and Craig Smith.

This is the second of three games between Calgary and Chicago this season. The Flames won their first meeting on Oct. 15. They’ll conclude the season series in Chicago on Jan. 13.