Three games into a five game road trip, the Calgary Flames (26-32-7, 59 points) have played three games with varying levels of completeness. They’ll try to find a full 60 when they visit the New York Islanders (37-24-5, 79 points). The Islanders played at home on Friday night against the Los Angeles Kings, and fell short of a dramatic comeback. Can the Flames take advantage of a scheduled win situation to climb to .500 on their road trip?

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

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Blake Coleman – Mikael Backlund – Joel Farabee
Matvei Gridin – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Yegor Sharangovich – Ryan Strome – Victor Olofsson
Connor Zary – John Beecher – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Olli Maatta
Yan Kuznetsov – Zach Whitecloud
Joel Hanley – Zayne Parekh

Based on intel from Sportsnet’s Derek Wills, we’re projecting Devin Cooley to start in net, continuing the goalie rotation of late, backed up by Dustin Wolf. The projected extras are Hunter Brzustewicz, Brayden Pachal, Ryan Lomberg and Martin Pospisil. Zach Whitecloud has rejoined the team and, per Wills, is expected to play on Saturday night.

The Flames are a team that can’t outscore their mistakes, so they’re going to live or die by their defensive game. They were pretty leaky at bad times in Washington and New York, and that led to those games getting away from the Flames at key times. But they were pretty solid in New Jersey and held on for the win. The Flames are a team that’s been depleted by trades and injuries, but they know how they need to play.

When they play that stifling style, they’re a tough out.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Emil Heineman – Bo Horvat – Calum Ritchie
Ondrej Palat – Brayden Schenn – Mathew Barzal
Anders Lee – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Simon Holmstrom
Maxim Shabanov – Casey Cizikas – Marc Gatcomb

Matthew Schaefer – Ryan Pulock
Adam Pelech – Tony DeAngelo
Carson Soucy – Scott Mayfield

David Rittich is expected to start for the Isles, backed up by Ilya Sorokin. Friday’s extras were Anthony Duclair, Kyle MacLean and Adam Boqvist.

The Islanders hosted the Los Angeles Kings on Friday night and battled to a 3-2 loss. They were trailing 3-0 at one point, but battled back and nearly tied it. The Islanders are a pretty good team and have some really good players – looking at you, Matthew Schaefer – but they can sometimes lack consistency, as we saw on Friday.

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

The Islanders are without Semyon Varlamov, Pierre Engvall, Alexander Romanov and Kyle Palmieri.

This is the second and final meeting between these teams this season. The Flames beat the Islanders in Calgary back in January.