On Saturday night at the Saddledome, two .500 teams will enter. One team will leave over .500 as they enter the second half of the 2025-26 season. The Calgary Flames (18-18-4, 40 points) and Nashville Predators (18-18-4, 40 points) have identical record through 40 games. Someone will pick up a win and be north of the .500 mark, and inch closer to a playoff spot in a very mediocre Western Conference.

Today’s broadcast begins at 5 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

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 skaters are Justin Kirkland and Brayden Pachal.

Midway through the Philadelphia game, Flames head coach Ryan Huska swapped Connor Zary and Adam Klapka, and that change seems to be carried over into this game. After New Year’s Eve’s game, Huska was asked about the swap: “I don’t think there’s enough speed on the one line and, you know, adding a little different to both lines I think benefited both lines to be honest with you.” We’ll see how things look over a full game.

The Flames have gotten themselves into a pretty decent spot after a truly awful start to the season. We’ll see if they can keep building on it.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Filip Forsberg – Ryan O’Reilly – Steven Stamkos
Michael Bunting – Erik Haula – Luke Evangelista
Tyson Jost – Fedor Svechkov – Matthew Wood
Reid Schaefer – Michael McCarron – Cole Smith

Roman Josi – Nick Perbix
Brady Skjei – Adam Wilsby
Nicolas Hague – Nick Blankenburg

We’re projecting Juuse Saros to start in net, backed up by Justus Annunen. They have no healthy extras right now.

This is the sixth game of a seven game road trip for Nashville: they’ve already been to Minnesota, St. Louis, Utah, Vegas and Seattle, and they play Edmonton on Jan. 6. So far, they’re 3-2-0 on the trip. Nashville’s had a streaky year, winning a few and losing a few, but never quite getting much traction. They’re not a bad team, but they’ve just lacked consistency this season.

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

The Predators are without Jonathan Marchessault, Ozzy Wiesblatt and Justin Barron.

This is the finale of the three game season series between Calgary and Nashville. The Predators won each of the first two games.

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