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Five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Columbus Blue Jackets:
1. Dynamic snipers
There are nine players in the NHL averaging more than 17 shot attempts and a goal scored per 60 minutes of 5v5 play. Nine. This game features two of them, and they both play for the Blue Jackets. If you haven't already guessed, Cam Atkinson and Josh Anderson are the pair that meet the criteria. They both have high-end shots and can pile up chances in bunches, which is only aided by the playmakers they have alongside them (Artemi Panarin for Atkinson and Matt Duchene for Anderson). The Flames will have to pay special attention to those two, in particular. If they get the puck in the offensive zone with any space at all, they're a threat to score.
2. Extra opportunities
The Flames have struggled to stay disciplined, especially of late. They've spent the 10th most time shorthanded this season, and the 5th most over the last 25 games.
Staying out of the box hasn't been much of an issue for the Blue Jackets, though. They've spent less time shorthanded than any team in the league, and not much has changed of late – they sit 8th in PK time on ice over the last 25.
If the season to date is any indication, the Jackets seem like a decent bet to have an extra power play or two tonight. In a game between two talented, playoff-bound teams, a small edge like that could be the difference.
3. A very exploitable pairing
If there is one glaring weakness with the Blue Jackets, it's their 3rd pairing. They added Adam McQuaid to try and improve it yet, as I predicted, that's proven to be a sub-optimal move. He's really struggled alongside Scott Harrington.
In ~75 minutes with that duo on the ice, the Blue Jackets have controlled 43.07% of the attempts and 37.31% of the chances. Truly abysmal numbers. Neither guy is the fleetest of foot and neither guy excels at moving the puck out of the zone and transitioning up ice.
If I'm Bill Peters, I'm getting Johnny Gaudreau out against them every chance I get.
4. Corsi kings
On aggregate, the Flames are one of the league's best 5v5 teams this year. They've taken it up another notch of late, though. The Flames own a ludicrous 58.91 Corsi For%, and 57.37 Scoring Chance For%, over the last 10 games. The Blue Jackets are a little under 50% in each category during that time. The talent is there, but they still haven't figured things out entirely. I think the Flames can take advantage of that.
5. Which Bobrovsky shows up?
Goalies are always tough to project but, man, Sergei Bobrovsky's season has been a roller coaster. He owns a .909 save percentage on the year and has put forth some truly alarming performances. He's also shown us flashes of what made him arguably the best goaltender in the league in the few seasons prior to this – such as a 46 save shutout in an extremely important game against Carolina last time out.
Which version of Bobrovsky will we see tonight? With the way the Flames have piled up the shots and chances of late, that could be the most important factor in this game. If Bobrovsky isn't on, I don't think the Jackets have a shot.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau - Derek Ryan - Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Andrew Mangiapane - Mark Jankowski - Austin Czarnik
Alan Quine - Curtis Lazar - Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano - T.J. Brodie
Noah Hanifin - Travis Hamonic
Oscar Fantenberg - Rasmus Andersson
David Rittich
Columbus (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Artemi Panarin - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Cam Atkinson
Ryan Dzingel - Matt Duchene - Josh Anderson
Lukas Sedlak - Riley Nash - Boone Jenner
Brandon Dubinsky - Alexander Wennberg - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Zach Werenski - Seth Jones
Markus Nutivaara - David Savard
Scott Harrington - Adam McQuaid
Sergei Bobrovsky
Puck drop is just after 9:00 eastern and can be seen on SNW and FS-O.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
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