The Dads Trip continues for the Calgary Flames (13-16-4, 30 points) as they head to the Bay Area to tangle with the San Jose Sharks (16-14-3, 35 points). The Sharks are one of the most exciting young teams in hockey, while the Flames have rebounded nicely after a really ugly start to the season. Can the Flames sweep both games of their California trip?

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, Pacific, 360 and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Yegor Sharangovich – Nazem Kadri – Joel Farabee
Jonathan Huberdeau – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Connor Zary – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – John Beecher – Adam Klapka

Yan Kuznetsov – MacKenzie Weegar
Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Joel Hanley – Hunter Brzustewicz

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. Per Sportsnet’s Derek Wills, Dryden Hunt and Brayden Pachal skated late which suggests that they’re both scratched tonight and Mikael Backlund, who left Saturday’s game, will be in the lineup.

The Flames are 4-2-0 in December, and they’re 11-8-2 since the beginning of November. Their power play is no great shakes and they’re not exactly offensive dynamos at even strength. But they’ve done a nice job tidying up their game away from the puck, with one of the NHL’s better shorthanded units and a pretty stingy five-on-five group defensively, too.

If the Flames are going to win games, they’re going to have to play responsible defensive hockey. They seem to have committed to that style of play, come hell or high water, and they’ve been getting results lately.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Collin Graf – Macklin Celebrini – Igor Chernyshov
William Eklund – Alexander Wennberg – Tyler Toffoli
Ethan Cardwell – Ty Dellandrea – Jeff Skinner
Barclay Goodrow – Zack Ostapchuk – Ryan Reaves

Dmitry Orlov – John Klingberg
Mario Ferraro – Timothy Liljegren
Shakir Mukhamadullin – Vincent Iorio

Per San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng: We’re projecting Yaroslav Askarov to start in net, backed up by Alex Nedeljkovic. The projected extra skaters are Nick Leddy and Sam Dickinson.

The Sharks lost Will Smith and Philipp Kurashev to injuries during Saturday’s game. They’re both on IR now, and it looks like they’ll be slotting in call-ups Igor Chernyshov and Ethan Cardwell… somewhere in their forward group. We’ll see who gets the plum assignment of playing with Macklin Celebrini, who rules at hockey.

Even down a few key players, the Sharks are a fast, young, talented team. Beware.

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

The Sharks are without Logan Couture, Carey Price, Ryan Ellis, Michael Misa, Vincent Desharnais, Will Smith, Philipp Kurashev and Adam Gaudette.

This is the second of four meetings between these divisional foes. They’ll meet again on Jan. 31 in Calgary and Feb. 26 in San Jose.

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