Less than 24 hours after a loss in Montreal, the Calgary Flames (18-21-4, 40 points) are continuing their hefty eastern road trip with a visit to the Boston Bruins (22-19-2, 46 points) on Thursday evening. The Flames absolutely need points any way they can get them, and they’re facing a Bruins team that are themselves just back from a similarly hefty road trip. It’s a clash between two clubs looking for momentum, except one team already played on Wednesday night, too.

Today’s broadcast begins at 5 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One (and Ontario) and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

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

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

We’re projecting Devin Cooley to start in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. But given that Cooley was sick enough to not even back up on Monday, we’re a little skeptical admittedly. Wednesday’s extras were Justin Kirkland, Brayden Pachal and Zayne Parekh, so we’ll see at warm-up whether the Flames make any lineup changes in the back half of this back-to-back set.

After winning three games in a row after Christmas, the Flames have lost three games in a row. They entered the first game of this road trip as the NHL’s worst road team, statistically, and then they were the second-best team in their loss to Montreal. The Flames absolutely need to find their footing away from home if they want any hope of playing past Game 82. As it stands, their good work at the Saddledome won’t mean a whole lot if they can’t win consistently in other buildings.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Marat Khusnutdinov – Elias Lindholm – David Pastrnak
Morgan Geekie – Fraser Minten – Alexander Steeves
Casey Mittelstadt – Pavel Zacha – Viktor Arvidsson
Tanner Jeannot – Sean Kuraly – Mark Kastelic

Jonathan Aspirot – Charlie McAvoy
Nikita Zadorov – Henri Jokiharju
Mason Lohrei – Andrew Peeke

We’re projecting Joonas Korpisalo to start in net, backed up by Jeremy Swayman. Their extras look to be Michael Eyssimont, Jeffrey Viel and Vladislav Kolyachonok.

The Bruins are back at home following a five game road trip that saw them visit Buffalo, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Seattle. They went 2-2-1, with the finale being a 7-4 thumping at the hands at the Kraken on Tuesday evening. The Bruins will be looking to get their momentum back on home ice, and playing a Flames team on the second half of a back-to-back (with travel) seems like a good opportunity for them to do that.

The Flames are without Martin Pospisil, Sam Honzek, Jake Bean and John Beecher.

The Bruins are without Jordan Harris, Matej Blumel, Hampus Lindholm and Michael Callahan.

This is the season series finale between these two clubs. The Flames beat the Bruins in overtime back on Dec. 29.

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