On Monday night, the Calgary Flames (31-35-8, 70 points) faced their worst loss since 2018 against Colorado. On Thurdsay night, they try to atone for that outing when they face another pretty tough opponent, the Vegas Golden Knights (33-26-16, 82 points). The Flames are entering the second game of a mammoth six game road trip, and they were flat-out not very good in Denver. In a building where they’ve traditionally struggled, they’ll need to be much better against Vegas.

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One, Ontario, East 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 – Martin Pospisil – Adam Klapka

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

Per Sportsnet’s Derek Wills, it sounds like Dustin Wolf starts in net for the Flames, backed up by Devin Cooley. The projected healthy extras for Calgary look like Hunter Brzustewicz, Tyson Gross, Ryan Lomberg, John Beecher and Brennan Othmann. All indications from our media pals on the road trip are that both Connor Zary and Yan Kuznetsov return to action after injury-related absences.

A lot of teams struggle against the Colorado Avalanche. They’re the NHL’s best team and they’re stacked. But the Flames looked lost defensively for big swaths of Monday’s game, occasionally abandoning their structure and running around in their own end. It didn’t go well. The Flames will need to lean on their structure in their own end against Vegas if they want any chance of a positive outcome.

The Flames have won twice in Vegas since the Golden Knights entered the league in 2017.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Ivan Barbashev – Mitch Marner – Mark Stone
Brett Howden – Jack Echel – Pavel Dorofeyev
Reilly Smith – Tomas Hertl – Colton Sissons
Cole Smith – Nic Dowd – Keegan Kolesar

Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin – Rasmus Andersson
Jeremy Lauzon – Kaedan Korczak

Per reporting from the rink from our pals at SinBin and the Review-Journal, Carter Hart starts for the Golden Knights, backed up by Adin Hill. (It’s Hart’s first game since leaving his Jan. 8 start against Columbus after just 8:24 due to an injury.) The projected extras are Akira Schmid, Brandon Saad and Ben Hutton.

For the first time in his over 600 game NHL career, Rasmus Andersson will be in a unique position: playing the Flames. A second-round pick of the Flames way back in 2015, Andersson played a decade for the red team before a trade to Vegas back in mid-January. We’re fascinated to see how he looks against a team where he really cut his teeth as a pro and established himself as a very good NHLer.

Oh hey, it’s also John Tortorella’s second game behind the Vegas bench after replacing Bruce Cassidy a few days ago.

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

The Golden Knights are without Alex Pietrangelo, William Karlsson and Alexander Holtz.

This is the fourth and final meeting between these Pacific Division rivals. The Golden Knights have won two of the three prior meetings – a 4-2 in in Calgary on Oct. 14 and a 6-1 win in Vegas on Oct. 18 – while the Flames won at home 6-3 back on Dec. 20.