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
Dryden Hunt – Connor Zary – 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. The projected extra skater is Brayden Pachal. Captain Mikael Backlund left Saturday’s game in Los Angeles after two periods and didn’t participate in Monday’s practice, but we’ll see if he takes part in Monday’s morning skate. (We’ll update this posting as more lineup information comes in for both teams.)

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:

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

Dmitry Orlov – John Klingberg
Mario Ferraro – Nick Leddy
Sam Dickinson – Vincent Iorio

The Sharks didn’t skate on Sunday or Monday, so there’s some educated guesswork involved here – again, we’ll update as better information filters in throughout Tuesday. We’re projecting Yaroslav Askarov to start in net, backed up by Alex Nedeljkovic. The projected extra skaters are Zack Ostapchuk and Timothy Liljegren.

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, Jake Bean and Mikael Backlund.

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

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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