After a couple days off, the Calgary Flames (1-2-0, 2 points) begin another busy stretch in their schedule as they host the Vegas Golden Knights (1-0-2, 4 points) for the first of two games they’ll play against them this week.

The Flames have played some good hockey so far this season. But they’ve also played just poorly enough that they’ve lost two out of three games this season. And with the post-season their main goal this season, the Flames are hoping to halt this modest early skid and get back into the win column.

Today’s broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
MacKenzie Weegar – Daniil Miromanov
Joel Hanley – Zayne Parekh

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The projected extra skaters are Justin Kirkland, Jake Bean and Brayden Pachal. It looks like Daniil Miromanov will play his first game of the season.

Through three games, the Flames have done some good things in each game. They had a great comeback in Edmonton, albeit fuelled by odd goals. They played two good periods in Vancouver before Kevin Bahl got hurt and the game got scrambly. And they deserved a better fate through two periods against St. Louis, but seemed to lose their defensive details in the third period.

The Flames haven’t played poorly. And if they can string together a strong, consistent 60 minutes, we don’t hate their chances.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Ivan Barbashev – Jack Eichel – Mark Stone
Reilly Smith – William Karlsson – Brandon Saad
Pavel Dorofeyev – Tomas Hertl – Mitch Marner
Cole Reinhardt – Colton Sissons – Keegan Kolesar

Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Ben Hutton – Zach Whitecloud
Jeremy Lauzon – Kaedan Korczak

We’re projecting Adin Hill to start in net, backed up by Akira Schmid. The projected extra skaters are Alexander Holtz and Brett Howden.

Vegas has yet to lose in regulation this season. (That’s good.) They’ve lost two of their three games, though. (That’s bad.) The Golden Knights haven’t really found their stride yet this season, playing in a trio of pretty dang close games, and it might be a good thing that the Flames are facing them twice this early in the season. (We’ll see, since Vegas has traditionally had a lot of success against the Flames.)

Pavel Dorofeyev has scored five goals this season. As a team, Vegas has scored 10 overall.

The Flames are without Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil.

The Golden Knights are without Alex Pietrangelo and Noah Hanifin.

This is the first of four games between these divisional foes. They meet on Saturday in Vegas, then in Calgary on Dec. 20 before concluding the season series on Apr. 2 back in Vegas.

This article is a presentation of Platinum Mitsubishi, family owned and operated by lifelong Calgarians. Home of the industry-leading 10-year, 160,000-kilometre powertrain warranty. Check out their showroom at 2720 Barlow Trail NE or online at www.mitsu.ca.