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Five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Detroit Red Wings:
1. A dream matchup
The Red Wings have won 15 times in 41 tries. They are horrible. When you face a team like that, there are a lot of spots to take advantage. The most obvious is on the power play.
For one, Calgary is very good at drawing penalties. In fact, they're the best at it. They rank 1st drawing 4.32 penalties per 60 minutes.
If they're able to draw a handful of opportunities, they should be able to take advantage of it. The Red Wings are absolutely abysmal at killing penalties. On the year, they rank 30th in Corsi Against/60 and 29th in Expected Goals Against/60 while down a man.
They clearly struggle at the best of times so a matchup against Calgary (6th in power play goals and a lot of fire power to worry about) is not exactly what the doctor ordered for them.
2. A lifeless attack
It's not hard to understand why the Wings have won just one of their last 10 games. At 5v5, they've averaged 50.6 shot attempts and 21.74 chances per 60 during that stretch. Both totals rank them bottom-5.
Calgary, meanwhile, has allowed 53.84 attempts and 24.4 chances per 60 over the same time period. Both rank inside the top-10.
If Mike Smith doesn't help Detroit's cause tonight, they probably won't generate much offense.
3. The top line battle
The Gustav Nyquist, Dylan Larkin, Justin Abdelkader line has played very well together. Shockingly so. In ~160 minutes of 5v5 play, they've controlled 54% of the attempts, 54% of the chances, and 60%(!) of the high-danger looks. They haven't given up much defensively and they're capable of threatening at the other end of the ice. On paper, this seems like a great matchup for Calgary's big line. The numbers suggest this will be anything but a walk in the park.
4. A big edge
Jimmy Howard has played spectacularly well this season. Among 47 goaltenders with 600+ 5v5 minutes to their credit, Howard ranks 8th in save percentage (.935) and 5th in Goals Saved Above Average (10.05).
Smith's numbers aren't exactly up to par. He sits 46th in both save percentage (.896) and GSAA (-9.78).
Detroit doesn't have the leg up on Calgary in many areas but they most certainly do between the pipes.
5. James Neal
He leads the Flames in 5v5 shot attempts (20) and chances (14) over the last four games and was finally – finally! – rewarded with a goal last time out. The volume is there right now and perhaps the confidence will be, too, now that he's gotten a positive result. With games against poor defensive teams like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago coming up over the next week, this seems like as good of a time as any to go on a run.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Sam Bennett - Mark Jankowski - James Neal
Dillon Dube - Derek Ryan - Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano - T.J. Brodie
Noah Hanifin - Travis Hamonic
Oliver Kylington - Rasmus Andersson
Mike Smith
Winnipeg (via dailyfaceoff.com)
Gustav Nyquist - Dylan Larkin - Justin Abdelkader
Tyler Bertuzzi - Frans Nielsen - Thomas Vanek
Darren Helm - Luke Glendening - Andreas Athanasiou
Michael Rasmussen - Jacob De La Rose - Chris Ehn
Niklas Kronwall - Nick Jensen
Jonathan Ericsson - Filip Hronek
Dennis Cholowski - Luke Witkowski
Jimmy Howard
Puck drop is just after 7:00 eastern and can be seen on SNW and FS-D.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com and Corsica.Hockey
Recent posts:
On getting James Neal going and giving David Rittich more starts
Predicting the Pacific Division standings