The Calgary Flames will look to extend their winning streak to three games when they visit the Minnesota Wild on Saturday evening.

Dustin Wolf has been confirmed as Calgary’s starting goaltender, and will be looking to improve upon his incredible 17-7-2 record. The Flames enter this matchup three points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks in the race for the final Western Conference playoff berth, and also hold one game in hand.

After an incredible start to the season, the Wild are just 9-11-0 over their last 20 games, but have suffered through a nightmare injury situation throughout most of that timeframe. With Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, and captain Jared Spurgeon all back in action, the Wild’s lineup is currently far more complete, but they have confirmed that backup goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury will start in this matchup.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes, as well as outline my favourite betting angle below.

The Flames were not at their best versus the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday evening, as they allowed 25 shots in the first two periods, and were once again forced to lean heavily upon Wolf. They were able to find their legs in the third period, and broke through with a go-ahead goal from Jakob Pelletier 3:29 into the frame.

Pelletier, who was elevated to the top line Thursday alongside Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau, appears likely to remain in that role in this matchup. In just over seven minutes of time on ice together versus Buffalo, the Flames’ new-look top line held a goal differential of +2 and a 83.4% expected goal share.

While the Flames’ top line of Kadri, Huberdeau, and Martin Pospisil had been effective, their strong results seemed to revolve mainly around the chemistry of Kadri and Huberdeau. Pelletier has certainly earned a chance to work alongside Kadri and Huberdeau, and offers more offensive upside than Pospisil.

Wolf’s incredible play continues to be the main talking point surrounding the Flames right now, though the team continues to play a highly spirited brand of hockey to help overcome a lack of elite offensive talent. In Wolf’s last 10 starts, he is 8-2-0 and holds a save percentage of .927, and he holds a +13.3 GSAx rating in 26 appearances this season.

Over the last 10 games, the Flames have allowed 28.91 shots against per 60 and hold a 48.37 percent expected goal share.

Kaprizov returned to the lineup in Minnesota’s last matchup versus the Utah Hockey Club, and played well below his season average as the Wild entered the third period down three goals. At the time of his injury on December 23rd, Kaprizov was priced as the betting favourite to win the Hart Trophy.

On top of Kaprizov’s absence, the Wild have spent the majority of the last month playing without their top three defenders: Brock Faber, Jared Spurgeon, and Jonas Brodin. Brodin will remain out of the lineup in this matchup, but the Wild’s defensive core is still in significantly better shape with their top two blue-liners back in action.

In 13 games since the holiday break, the Wild hold an expected goal share of 48.13 percent and have allowed 3.10 xGA/60 after ranking near the top of the league in that metric in the first two months of the season.

The Flames will catch a break as the Wild have opted to start Fleury in this matchup instead of Filip Gustavsson. Gustavsson has been spectacular with an +11.8 GSAx rating this season, while Fleury holds a -3.9 GSAx rating after posting a -11.1 GSAx rating last season.

The Wild are an interesting team to handicap right now, as they have been in drastically worse form of late after a stellar start to the year, but chances are that mainly comes down to how many key pieces have been missing from the lineup. In all likelihood, we will see a resurgence from the Wild moving forward, but I’m not sold on backing Fleury to best Wolf, even if the prices on this game do look somewhat close considering the players that are now back in the lineup for Minnesota.

The Flames have been allowing a ton of shots against for a fairly large sample, and we have seen them hang around in a ton of games based on the elite play of Wolf. Fleury has been a well-below-average starter over the last two seasons, and the goaltending disparity in this matchup could help Calgary hang around.

This looks like a good spot to buy on Kaprizov in the shot prop market, after he put up just three in his return to action versus Utah. He’s gone over 3.5 shots on goal 60% of the time in his last 20 appearances, and a matchup at home versus the Flames sets up as a good time to ride that trend.

At -112 or better, I see value backing Kaprizov to record over 3.5 shots on goal.