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A few Calgary Flames notes as we quickly approach their play-in round series against the Winnipeg Jets:

• Starting quickly is always important but especially so in the play-in round. It is much more of a sprint than a marathon. There isn’t really any time to settle in and grow into the series. Under normal circumstances falling down 2-0 – particularly for the lower seed going back to home ice – is not exactly ideal but far from the end of the world. It is now. Drop the opening two games and there is legitimately zero (0) wiggle room for poor performances or puck luck.

I think the added importance on each game will have many teams shortening their benches earlier than normal. The Flames should not be an exception given how shallow they are up front. So long as team conditioning allows it, Geoff Ward should be glueing the 4th line made up of Zac Rinaldo (-5.19 Rel CF%), Mark Jankowski (-2.35 Rel CF%) and Tobias Reider (-2.15 Rel CF%) to the bench as much as possible. They don’t add any value to the team at even-strength in terms of defense, play driving, or production. They’ll be exposed playing more than a handful of shifts per night.

• Rasmus Andersson vs Nik Ehlers is going to be such a big factor in this series. Ehlers is asked to do *all* of the heavy lifting through the neutral zone on his line – he’s one of the best transition players in the league and Cody Eakin/Patrik Laine, well, aren’t – and there’s no reason to expect any different against Calgary. I quite liked his chances of wreaking havoc against the Flames prior to Travis Hamonic’s opt-out. The latter had more than his share of troubles vs speedy transition players over the last couple of years. I think Andersson, who keeps good gaps in the NZ and is a borderline elite in-zone defender, stands a much better chance of slowing Ehlers down on the left side (right side for the defense).

Winnipeg, like Calgary, doesn’t have a ton of offensive pop in their bottom-6. If Andersson can help neutralize Ehlers, that’ll go a long way towards the Flames winning the series. It certainly won’t be easy, though, as Ehlers is a big-time threat. Nobody picked up more 5v5 points in the 20 games prior to the break.

• The Flames are expected to go with the ‘hot hand’ in goal once the games begin, which is understandable considering how short of a timeline we’re dealing with. Nobody can wait around for players to find their game. Leashes have to be short. In saying that, if the level of play is anywhere close I think the nod should go to David Rittich. While Cam Talbot’s base statistics are better, Rittich fared much better vs high-danger shots at even-strength (.836 vs .806) and across all game states (.837 vs .799). Rittich is more adept at making the big save (his name is Big Save Dave for a reason), which I think gives him more game stealing potential. I’d want him between the pipes.

Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com

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