For the third time this season, the 21-17-2 Calgary Flames will face-off against Vancouver to play the 19-18-3 Canucks. Though previously thought to be dead in the water in regards to the Western Conference playoff race, the Canucks have been surging as of late, winning their last five games. Meanwhile, the Flames are also on a roll, winning 11 of their last 15 contests. Calgary enters tonight's game firmly in the second wildcard spot with 44 points in 40 games, while the Canucks sit one point out of a playoff spot with 41 points in the same sample size of games played.
The Flames are 1-0-1 against Vancouver this season. They lost to the Canucks 2-1 in a shootout on October 15, and defeated the Canucks by a 4-1 score on December 23.
The Projected Lineup
Calgary Flames
Kris Versteeg - Sam Bennett - Micheal Ferland
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Alex Chiasson
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Lance Bouma - Matt Stajan - Freddie Hamilton
Mark Giordano - Dougie Hamilton
T.J. Brodie - Dennis Wideman
Tyler Wotherspoon - Deryk Engelland
Brian Elliott
Chad Johnson
Scratches: Jyrki Jokipakka, Garnet Hathaway, Troy Brouwer (hand)
Vancouver Canucks
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Jayson Megna
Loui Eriksson - Brandon Sutter - Markus Granlund
Sven Baertschi - Bo Horvat - Anton Rodin
Brendan Gaunce - Michael Chaput - Jack Skille
Alex Edler - Troy Stecher
Luca Sbisa - Chris Tanev
Ben Hutton - Nikita Tryamkin
Jacob Markstrom
Ryan Miller
Scratches: Erik Gudbranson, Derek Dorsett, Jannik Hansen, Alex Burrows, Philip Larsen
Who to Watch
For the Flames, Mikael Backlund enters this game on a 5-game goal-scoring streak. He'll be given a lot of ice-time tonight against the Canucks' top offensive lines.
Sven Baertschi of the Canucks has four goals in his last three games and is riding a four-game point-scoring streak. In addition, he is a former Flame, having been traded to Vancouver from Calgary in March 2015.
Where to Watch
Catch this one on Sportsnet West or 960 at 8:00 Mountain Time. Rick Ball and Kelly Hrudey will likely have the call on the former station, while Derek Wills and Peter Loubardias will have the radio duties, as always.
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Last edited by TheScorpion; 01-06-2017 at 04:11 PM.
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Gee Willikers he's doing almost as well as Paul Byron. How many more years are we going to have to discuss a middling forward like this? Also he's pretty well been a non-factor every time these two teams face.
Last edited by Erick Estrada; 01-06-2017 at 10:14 AM.
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Saw this stat on HF. Sven is 13th in P/60! He seems to be doing really well right now. Paul Byron though... T.T
I heard he was high but when I was looking at sporting graphs he is a lot lower. I know one is probably 5v5 but why ignore the almost 75 minutes he has on the PP where he only has 3 points. For the record his total for the season killing penalties is 49 seconds. Something seems off.
Also when I saw his PK time I had a good laugh because in another thread someone stated her averaged 49 secs a game (compared to Bennett's minute something a game average). Either NHL stats are broken or something is off with that HF chart.
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one good thing about tonight's game is that the sound will be synced becuz i'll only get the snp feed
the thing is i don't even get to enjoy that becuz i can't stand the canuck announcers. if the flames get a nice big lead then i'll un-mute the tv becuz it's just funny to hear them whine, but if it's a close game i'll just 'watch' the game (literally)
GO FLAMES GO!!!
__________________ "...and there goes Finger up the middle on Luongo!" - Jim Hughson, Av's vs. 'Nucks
In the perfect world, the Flames will take all 4 points. That would be absolutely huge. But the Canucks are actually playing pretty well now, so it's going to be tougher then it was the last game.
Also NHL.com shows the Flames as have the 4th most wins in the WC, and 9th most in the league with 21 wins. Bloody amazing considering how the season started.
It has take a good chunk of games but they have definitely put themselves in the drivers seat and control their own destiny after that start. In terms of the 7 game segments, a couple big wins here would completely erase the lost segments early on in the season.
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Goals/60 can be very misleading. It seems like a good stat because you're taking their points, and factoring in the amount of ice-time they get. That should be really informative right?
But one needs only look at the list of leaders to see that, while many big names are there (guys who get a lot of points are going to get a lot of points, no matter how you look at it). But there are also a lot of names that are not elite players in the slightest.
So then one has to ask: is the coach wrong (every time) and should be giving these players more ice-time? Or... is there something else that this stat is missing?
While either (or both) could be the case, it is foolish to assume coaches are wrong most of the time. Other things are at play, such as zone starts, quality of competition, PP time, when are they getting ice-time (i.e. do they get lots of shifts when trailing in the third, but rarely get defensive shifts), who are their line-mates? etc.
Baertschi has been on a bit of a point streak lately - everyone gets them from time to time. Good for him - we'll see how sustainable it is.
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Flames @ Canucks. 8 PM, Sportsnet West, 960.
How many more years are we going to have to discuss a middling forward like this? Also he's pretty well been a non-factor every time these two teams face.
