Is there any doubt, among either fanbase, that tonight’s showdown between the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks at the Scotiabank Saddledome won’t be a playoff-quality match up?
For both teams, making the dance is far from a certainty.
A quick look at the Western Conference Wildcard race to set the stage.
Rick Tochett’s Canucks squad has lost two straight, including a loss against Montreal last night that saw the team stumble out of the gate and fall just short on a third period rally.
They’re 4-6-0 in their last ten. St. Louis, 7-1-2 in their last ten, has caught them in points. A Canucks loss tonight would tie the two teams in games played.
Calgary, 4-3-3 in their last ten but notching five out of six possible points in their last three, at least has a game or two in hand when it comes to clemency.
At a Glance
Calgary Flames (30-23-10, 70 pts) vs. Vancouver Canucks (29-24-11, 69 pts)
Last Ten: Calgary (4-3-3) Vancouver (4-6-0)
Time: 7:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
TV: Sportsnet (nationally televised)
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup
Courtesy of Pat Steinberg.
@Fan960Steinberg
Huberdeau-Kadri-Coronato
Farabee-Backlund-Coleman
Sharangovich-Frost-Pospisil
Lomberg-Rooney-Zary
Hanley-Weegar
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Pachal
Wolf
Oof
A 5-2 win by the Anaheim Ducks over the Canucks and a 3-0 loss to the Lightning on Feb. 27 spelled some bad press for the Calgary Flames.
The offence produced in both games, or lack thereof, officially put Calgary in last place in terms of goals scored per game with 2.56.
The team hasn’t found a way of 32nd since. As of this morning, the Flames have scored 2.56 goals per game over 63 showings.
The 31st-ranked San Jose Sharks have 2.61.
In fact, they’re losing ground. Their closest competition; Nashville, Anaheim and San Jose have been picking up their offence while Calgary has scored a mere 2.00 goals per game since the beginning of March.
Two trains of thought there.
1.) This lineup
has to be underperforming. Perhaps they get hot at the right time for once and go on a heater down the stretch.
2.) The rest of the league has the book on Calgary. Rolling out a 1-2-2, 1-3-1, or even 0-2-3 through the neutral zone is enough to keep the game winnable.
The greatest example of this was last Thursday’s 3-2 overtime loss to Dallas. Even when down 2-0, the Stars played a heavy neutral zone management game and eventually came out of it with two points.
There are a few explanations.
Calgary doesn’t generate enough speed. They’re not great at finding empty lanes because they take so much time breaking the puck up the ice. Huska employs a puck retrieval offence, but most of the team isn’t big, fast, or aggressive enough to consistently generate high-quality chances from that.
To be fair to Huska, the team needs to go that route because the options are either lose the puck at the blue line or go for a coin flip in the corners.
Uh Oh
Last season’s Norris winner, Quinn Hughes, has been confirmed to be returning to the lineup tonight. Surely, he’s still injured, but it’s is a must-win.
Despite playing through, Hughes has 14 goals and 46 assists for 60 points in 50 games.
A look at his last two games is interesting. The 25-year-old from Orlando, Florida had zero points and had a -6 even strength goal differential over 44:54 of ice time.
Speaking of playing through injuries.
Rotation
Much of the Flames fanbase is in revolt after seeing that Connor Zary will play his fourth game in a row on Calgary’s fourth line.
To be fair, Zary and Matthew Coronato are both getting shifts on the first line with Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri.
Two reasons why that seems reasonable:
1.) Zary is coming back from a knee injury. It’s a breath of fresh air to see the organization not throwing their asset into the fire immediately after being cleared to play. That bumper spot on the first line is puck retrieval intensive; a big reason the unit excelled with Martin Pospisil forcing turnovers.
2.) Huska is deploying a
Carrot and Stick approach that is simply fun to watch. Either player can step up and get more anticipation time in order to mentally prepare.
Time Will Tell
Flames forward Joel Farabee took a shot at his former head coach, John Torterella on Sunday.
Almost every top-sixer in the NHL believes that they should be getting better deployment, but with a goal in each of his last two games, perhaps we start to see Farabee begin to reclaim some lost potential.
His situation in Philly was far from simple.
The Syracuse, New York product underwent disc replacement surgery during the summer of 2022 after sustaining an offseason training injury. Jack Eichel and Tyler Johnson also had this procedure done and both needed time to get back to their game.
A week prior to his surgery, Tortorella was hired as the organization's 23rd head coach in franchise history.
A rough season where Farabee found himself in his new Coach's doghouse ensued. His average ice time diminished year-by-year from 17:01 to 16:11 to finally 15:12 this season.
Interestingly enough, Farabee has only played an average of 14:19 per game under Huska. Part of that can be attributed to what appeared to be a wrist/hand injury suffered against Carolina Hurricanes last road trip, but it's something to see him so happy to be playing for a coaching group who has more faith in him.
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lineup
Courtesy of nhl.com writing staff.
Drew O’Connor -- Elias Pettersson -- Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua -- Teddy Blueger -- Conor Garland
Jake DeBrusk -- Filip Chytil -- Jonathan Lekkerimaki
Nils Hoglander -- Pius Suter -- Kiefer Sherwood
Quinn Hughes -- Filip Hronek
Marcus Pettersson -- Tyler Myers
Derek Forbort -- Victor Mancini
Kevin Lankinen
Arturs Silovs
Game time is 7:00 p.m. MST.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»