After their convincing 3-2 victory over the New York Rangers, the Calgary Flames are now 8-3-0 on home ice, and will look to build on that mark Saturday in a tough matchup versus one of the league’s best road teams, the Minnesota Wild.

The Wild hold a mark of 9-1-2 on the road this season, and a record of 7-2-1 over the last 10 games.

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

After posting just 87 points in a year where everything went wrong last season, the Wild have bounced back with a dominant 13-3-1 start. Minnesota suffered through some of the league’s worst injury luck a year ago, and received shaky play from Filip Gustavsson, who was brilliant in the 2022-23 season.

The Wild rank first in the NHL this season in allowing just 2.41 xGA/60. They feature a deep defensive core, led by highly mobile play-drivers Brock Faber, Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin. Their top-nine also features a number of strong two-way forwards, such as Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek.

Kirill Kaprizov might have a little more support than is often credited, and it’s definitely not a one-man show up front in Minnesota, but the Wild still project to be a side that will most often find success based on their elite defensive play. They rank 13th in xGF/60 this season, and don’t feature much in the way of meaningful scoring threats further down the lineup card.

Unfortunately for the Flames, the Wild opted to start Marc-Andre Fleury in Edmonton on Thursday and save Gustavsson for this matchup. Gustavsson has played to a +7.1 GSAx and .926 save % this season, and ranks first in the NHL in GAA among goalies to make 10 starts.

Mats Zuccarello is expected to be the only regular missing from the Wild’s lineup for this contest.

The Flames enter this matchup off of three convincing wins, and there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that so far on this homestand they have played their best hockey of the year. At times this season the Flames’ success has looked to be too driven by elite goaltending to be sustainable, but their recent performances on home ice suggests that may not be the case.

They have allowed 2.96 xGA/60 over the last three games, and hold a 55.39% expected goal share. Those analytics run in line with the eye test, as Coach Ryan Huska’s group has displayed a tremendous work-rate and done a good job of avoiding breakdowns in the key areas of the ice.

Despite their strong results, the Flames have scored just 2.4 goals per game in the month of November. They have shot just 6.93% which suggests some positive regression should be on the horizon, but even still they rank 20th in xGF/60 in that span and lack elite scoring talent.

Dan Vladar is expected to get the start in this matchup. He holds a +1.7 GSAx rating and .905 save % in nine starts this season.

The Wild hold the best defensive metrics in the league this season, and have allowed the second fewest actual goals against. They become even stingier when Gustavsson is in goal as opposed to Fleury, and also now have Spurgeon and Ek back in the lineup.

This presents as a tough spot for the Flames to solve their recent goal-scoring woes. The Flames were more than deserving of a strong three- goal output versus Shesterkin and the Rangers, but a larger sample of their work suggests managing a good offensive output in this spot should prove difficult.

The Flames have defended far better in their recent matchups, though, and have allowed just 1.33 goals against in their last five home games. Vladar likely getting this start raises the Wild’s chance of managing some offence to some extent, but he has still been sharp in his own right.

I think we will see both sides come out with a high level of urgency in this matchup and limit high-danger chances early on. At -115 or better, I see value backing the first period to stay under 1.5 goals.