After winning a week ago, the Calgary Flames (16-11-7, 39 points) finally get back into action following their Christmas break when they visit the Bay Area to face the San Jose Sharks (11-21-6, 28 points). It’s the second half of a back-to-back for the Sharks and the first half of a back-to-back for the Flames, and both teams play Vegas during their sets. Can the Flames keep their pre-break momentum rolling?

Tonight’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet’s national feed, CBC and City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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.

For a team that everyone expected to be pretty bad this season, the Flames have emerged as a pretty good hockey team. The secret to their success is it feels like they figured out how they need to play to win hockey games – or give themselves a shot at winning. They have to play fast, structured, disciplined hockey. It hasn’t worked all of the time, but their adherence to their system has kept them in the playoff mix.

The Flames are 4-2-3 in December. Jonathan Huberdeau leads the team with 11 points this month.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Klim Kostin – Mikael Granlund – Tyler Toffoli
Fabian Zetterlund – Macklin Celebrini – Will Smith
Luke Kunin – Alex Wennberg – Barclay Goodrow
Carl Grundstrom – Nico Sturm – Ty Dellandrea

Henry Thrun – Cody Ceci
Mario Ferraro – Timothy Liljegren
Shakir Mukhamadullin – Jan Rutta

We’re projecting Yaroslav Askarov to start for the Sharks, backed up by Alexandar Georgiev (who started on Friday against Vegas). Klim Kostin is returning from injury, which bumps Nikolai Kovalenko to the press box. The Sharks lost to Vegas at home on Friday night.

Here’s the thing with the Sharks: they’re not a great team yet. Do they have some really fun players? Heck yeah! A bunch of them. Have they built a system, structure and culture around them that will enable lasting success? Not yet. But if you can anticipate some of the older pieces of the team cycling out over the next few years and some younger faces being added, you don’t need to stretch your imagination too far to see how things could start to fall together.

The Sharks are 2-8-1 in December.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha and Justin Kirkland.

The Sharks are without Logan Couture, Marc-Eduoard Vlasic, Vitek Vanecek, Jake Walman and William Eklund.

This is the first of four meetings between these divisional foes. They meet again Feb. 23 in Calgary, Apr. 7 in San Jose and Apr. 13 in Calgary. (It’s a very back-loaded season series.)