A day after a close loss in Los Angeles, the Calgary Flames (24-28-6, 54 points) are back at it in the second half of a back-to-back set when they face the Anaheim Ducks (32-23-3, 67 points). It’s not the world’s worst travel, driving down I-5 from Los Angeles to Anaheim, but the Flames are facing a relatively fresh Ducks team that sits above them in the standings. It’ll be a tough test for a scrappy Flames squad.

Today’s broadcast begins at 6 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Connor Zary – Nazem Kadri – Joel Farabee
Blake Coleman – Morgan Frost – Matvei Gridin
Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Martin Pospisil – John Beecher – Adam Klapka

Yan Kuznetsov – Zach Whitecloud
Kevin Bahl – MacKenzie Weegar
Joel Hanley – Zayne Parekh

It’s the second half of a back-to-back, so Saturday’s backup, Devin Cooley, will likely start, backed up by Dustin Wolf. Brayden Pachal and Ryan Lomberg were the extra skaters on Saturday and given the Flames are coming off a loss, we would expect one or both to rotate in – especially given the Flames are playing their third game in as many nights. Tune in at warm-up to see what changes are made.

The Flames have played twice since the Olympics. They played quite well against San Jose and won. They played fine against Los Angeles but couldn’t get anything going offensively, and lost. You can’t fault the effort. They’ve been really solid defensively, but they just need to be a bit more direct with their offensive zone play.

Coming off two strong outings from Wolf, we’ll see if a fresh Cooley can give the Flames a boost at the end of this road trip.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Chris Kreider – Leo Carlsson – Cutter Gauthier
Jeffrey Veil – Mason McTavish – Beckett Sennecke
Jansen Harkins – Ryan Poehling – Alex Killorn
Ross Johnston – Tim Washe – Frank Vatrano

Jackson Lacombe – Jacob Trouba
Olen Zellweger – Radko Gudas
Pavel Mintuykov – Drew Helleson

We’re projecting Lukas Dostal to start in net, backed up by Ville Huuse. The lone healthy extra for the Ducks looks to be Ian Moore.

So, uh, the Ducks are quite good. They’re in a playoff spot. They’re missing some key players, but they’ve amassed enough strong young players, and enough depth, that they’ve been able to weather the injury storm and keep chugging along. The Ducks play a fast, smart brand of hockey, and they’re a team that can hurt their opponents in a lot of different ways.

The Flames are without Sam Honzek, Jake Bean and Jonathan Huberdeau.

The Ducks are without Petr Mrazek, Mikael Granlund, Troy Terry and Ryan Strome.

This is the second of four games between the Flames and Ducks this season. They’ll meet again on Mar. 26 in Calgary and on Apr. 4 in Anaheim.

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