In their final Saturday night game of the regular season, the Calgary Flames (36-27-12, 84 points) are still in playoff contention! And they’ll host a divisional foe with their playoff fate still to be decided, as they host the Pacific-leading Vegas Golden Knights (45-22-8, 98 points). The Flames are trying to remain alive in the playoff race, while Vegas is trying to sew up the division. It’s the final Hockey Night in Canada of the season for the Flames, and it’s a game of huge importance!

Today’s broadcast begins at 8 p.m. MT on CBC, Sportsnet’s national feed, City TV and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Yegor Sharangovich – Nazem Kadri – Martin Pospisil
Jonathan Huberdeau – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Rooney – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Rasmus Andersson
Joel Hanley – MacKenzie Weegar
Jake Bean – Brayden Pachal

We’re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Dan Vladar. The projected extras look to be Daniil Miromanov, Dryden Hunt and Aydar Suniev. We’re not expecting any changes to the Flames lineup that beat Anaheim on Thursday evening.

Man, y’know who’s been good lately? We’ve discussed the impact of guys like Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and Matt Coroanto since the 4 Nations Face-off, but MacKenzie Weegar is third on the team in points (with 12) and is among the better possession players on the club (at 50.86 xGF%). You can quibble with a few of the details of Weegar’s game, but his body of work has been really strong of late. He’ll need to continue to be at his best if the Flames hope to keep playing past Game 82.

The Flames enter Saturday’s action five points back of Minnesota for the final Western Conference playoff spot with two games in hand. They don’t control their own destiny, but if they keep finding ways to win, they can make next week’s game against the Wild a pretty important one.

Projected lines via Daily Faceoff:

Ivan Barbashev – Jack Eichel – Mark Stone
Victor Olofsson – William Karlsson – Reilly Smith
Brandon Saad – Nicolas Roy – Pavel Dorofeyev
Tanner Pearson – Brett Howden – Keegan Kolesar

Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin – Alex Pietrangelo
Nicolas Hague – Zach Whitecloud

We’re projecting Akira Schmid to start in net, backed up by Adin Hill. Their projected extras are Cole Schwindt, Ben Hutton and Kaedan Korczak.

The Golden Knights are in first place in the Pacific Division and they’ve clinched a playoff berth. They’re three points ahead of Los Angeles for top spot, and probably would love to avoid playing the Edmonton Oilers in the first round. So while this is a super-duper important game for the red team, it’s not without importance for the visitors, either.

The Flames are without Anthony Mantha, Justin Kirkland and Connor Zary.

The Golden Knights are without Tomas Hertl and Ilya Samsonov.

The Flames have played Vegas twice this season and lost, both times in Vegas, by a combined 8-0 score. They’ll play Vegas twice at the Saddledome: on Saturday night, and then again 10 days from now in their home finale.