A day after the 2026 trade deadline, the Calgary Flames (24-30-7, 55 points) kick off the march through the remainder of their season when the host the powerhouse Carolina Hurricanes (40-16-6, 86 points). The Hurricanes are playing on back-to-back nights, having walloped Edmonton on Friday night and then travelled. Can the Flames find a way to upset a stacked hockey team?

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on CBC, Sportsnet West, Pacific and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Yegor Sharangovich – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Blake Coleman – Morgan Frost – Joel Farabee
Connor Zary – Ryan Strome – Martin Pospisil
Ryan Lomberg – John Beecher – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Zach Whitecloud
Olli Maatta – Zayne Parekh
Yan Kuznetsov – Brayden Pachal

Based on morning skate, we’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. So here’s what we think is happening: Olli Maatta made it to town on Friday and skated, so he’ll make his Flames debut, wearing #3. Ryan Strome was pretty set on making it based on his post-trade interview on Sportsnet, so he’ll probably make his Flames debut, wearing #22. He didn’t make it in time for morning skate but he’s expected to play. Olofsson didn’t make morning skate and is not expected to play. Joel Hanley is under the weather and won’t play. As such, the Flames have no “healthy extras” for Saturday night.

The Flames are past the emotional tumult of the trade deadline. Now they can just… play. And as we learned last season, the Flames can be a damn fine hockey team when they just play their game. We’ll see if they can teach the new guys the ropes and find their rhythm quickly.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Andrei Svechnikov – Sebastian Aho – Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall – Logan Stankoven – Jackson Blake
Nikolaj Ehlers – Jordan Staal – Jordan Martinook
William Carrier – Mark Jankowski – Eric Robinson

Jaccob Slavin – Jalen Chatfield
K’Andre Miller – Sean Walker
Shayne Gostisbehere – Alexander Nikishin

We’re projecting Brandon Bussi to start in net, backed up by Frederik Andersen, who started in Edmonton on Friday. Their extras on Friday were Mike Reilly, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nicolas Deslauriers, so we’ll see if they make any changes.

The Hurricanes beat Edmonton by a 6-3 score on Friday night. They scored all six goals at even strength and got contributions from five different goal-scorers. Heck, 11 different skaters registered points. That’s a pretty good representation of who the ‘Canes are this season: they don’t overwhelm you with one good line, but instead just send waves of good players at you.

Even on a back-to-back, they’re a formidable challenge.

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

The Hurricanes are without Charles-Alexis Legault and Pyotr Kochetkov.

This is the second and final meeting between these teams this season. Carolina beat the Flames in overtime (1-0) back in November in Raleigh.