The Calgary Flames kick off a seven game road trip tonight with a visit to the Bell Center to play the 3-10-1 Montreal Canadiens.
Habs fans find themselves in a very relatable place to where Flames fans have been in past seasons.
Horrible start? Check.
Core locked up for the foreseeable future? Check.
Fans calling for the General Manager to be fired? Check.
Sitting 31st in league standings, the Canadiens are likely on the verge of changing their management group, possibly their Coaching staff, and likely a moving around a few players.
What I’m trying to say here is the Flames have a decent chance at winning tonight. According to Vegas, they have worse odds to win tonight (-140) than they did to win against the Sharks (-235). Here is the projected lineup courtesy of Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg):
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk
Coleman-Monahan-Mangiapane
Dube-Backlund-Lewis
Lucic-Richardson-Pitlick
Hanifin-Andersson
Kylington-Tanev
Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Line mixing
Just when you thought the Flames had found a good forward line configuration to settle on; boom. Monahan second line. Backlund, Pitlick and Coleman split up and sent to the five corners of Scotland. Lucic back to the fourth line. Richardson is still in the lineup.
All that remains after the upheaval is that the first line remains intact. Which raises an eyebrow as they had a bad game last game. Sutter even pointed out that San Jose’s best players outperformed Calgary’s best players in the post game press meeting.
All of this shuffling and no Walker Duehr?
No Valimaki still
One has to wonder how Jusso Valimaki is performing in practice. The blue line didn’t exactly bring their “A game” against the Sharks. The 16th overall pick of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft seems to be in development purgatory.
How good can Jake Allen be?
Adin Hill recently joined the “Goalies that Stand on Their Head Against Calgary” Club by posting a .974 save percentage. It has become a clear prerequisite for teams that hope to end the night two points higher in the standings. Jake Allen has kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde style. Take a look at his last five games courtesy of nhl.com.
Odds aren’t great that Jake steals the game, but he certainly could.
Enjoy the game,
Trevor Neufeld
Follow me on Twitter @Trevor_Neufeld 
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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