As we near the midway point of January, we’re starting to see a bit of a trend. The group will rattle off two wins and then promptly follow up with two crushing defeats. With victories over the Coyotes and Senators earlier in the week, do the Flames continue the trend, or are we going to see the Flames rattle off their third win in a row? Let's get to it.
Calgary Flames (15-16-5, 35 pts) vs Vegas Golden Knights (24-13-5, 53 pts)
Last Ten: Calgary (6-4-0) Vegas (3-7-0)
Time: 8:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
TV: Sportsnet One, Sportsnet West, ESPN+
Blake Goalman
Currently three points away from passing his career high of 38 points in 2022-2023,
Blake Coleman is having a career season. His current pace is 35 goals and 68 pts. Not bad for a $4,900,000 cap hit.
Yegor the Bold
Acquired with a 2023 third round pick (Aydar Suniev) for
Tyler Toffoli over the summer,
Yegor Sharangovich is also on pace to smash his former career high of 46 points in 2021-2022. The Belarusian’s current pace is 33 goals and 59 points.
Sharangovich has two goals in six career games against the Golden Knights. Both goals have come since joining the Flames. You would be a fool to bet on him to score a goal against Vegas tonight.
Trends
Small sample sizes are a lot of fun in hockey.
Dennis Gilbert’s 100CF% in his first game of last year playing next to
Chris Tanev always comes to mind. Essentially just zero shot attempts against and a few for over a sheltered deployment.
Six games is a sample size that could be considered small. How have the Flames looked in six January games?
Aside from the aforementioned
two & two trend, the Flames are currently running the fourth-best offense in 2024 with 4.33 goals per game. Their defence and goaltending are looking solid at a 10th-best 2.67 goals against per game in the new year.
See, you could make a case that the Flames have turned over a new leaf with the turn of the calendar. The pocket response may be, “Yeah, but Chicago.” but oh well. That game was a small sample size and can be written off as irrelevant.
Injuries in Sin City
Vegas superstars Jack Eichel and Mark Stone ran into some bad luck during Thursday’s 2-1 overtime win over the Boston Bruins. Both left the game with injuries.
Eichel is confirmed to miss the game tonight.
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup
Markstrom starts. Oesterle in, Kuznetsov out. Courtesy of Eric Francis.
@EricFrancis
Huberdeau - Lindholm - Sharangovich
Zary - Kadri - Pospisil
Mangiapane - Backlund - Coleman
Greer - Ruzicka – Dube
Hanifin-Tanev
Weegar-Andersson
Oesterle-DeSimone
Markstrom
Vladar
Vegas Golden Knights Projected Lineup
Calgary kid Logan Thompson starts, Eichel takes the game off. Courtesy of Jesse Granger.
@JesseGranger_
Dorofeyev—Stephenson—Stone
Barbashev—Roy—Marchessault
Cotter—Howden—Amadio
Røndbjerg—Froese—Kolesar
Martinez—Pietrangelo
McNabb—Korczak
Hague—Whitecloud
Thompson
Saville
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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