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The Calgary Flames have picked up veteran goaltender Joey Macdonald off waivers today from the Detroit Red Wings. With Miikka Kiprusoff out of the lineup, albeit for a short time, the Flames have not seemingly confided in their current backups to take on the role of helping their team succeed.
Macdonald's record in the NHL is 31-48-13, with a 3.04GA average and .903 save percentage. While not staggering numbers, Macdonald has much more NHL experience than all other three goalies combined for the Flames and he comes from a winning environment in Detroit.
The interesting thing about this, is now the Flames have four goaltenders on their roster which means moves will need to be made in order to fit under the player limits for the team carrying foward. Despite recent reports that Cammalleri will be available for tonight's match up, he has been placed on IR which opens a free roster spot for the team.
Do the Flames have a few other things in the works? Are they looking at moving Kiprusoff and playing one of Taylor/Irving in front of, or behind Macdonald carrying forward? Or perhaps they are simply not impressed with the talent level of their younger netminders and are looking to move them, instead.
More will follow, Im sure...
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The Calgary Flames are at home tonight against the Minnesota Wild and both teams are sitting at the bottom of the Northwest division. This is the 1st of 5 meetings between the two clubs this season. Currently Minnesota is 3rd in the northwest, 3 points ahead of the Flames who have played two less games. Calgary is 16-7-4 against Minnesota in their career.
Minnesota hasn’t won on the road this season and they will try to take advantage of Calgary’s injury list to break that streak tonight. Good news is we should see Cammalleri back tonight and Kipursoff could be back as early as Wednesday. Even thought the Wild will try to use Kipursoff’s injury in their favor, their net minder Backstrom hasn’t had a much better start. Although he’s playing well, his save percentage is .909...his lowest save percentage in three seasons.
Goalie misery isn’t the only thing these two teams have in common; both teams have had dismal starts to this season and will be looking to get out of slump. As such, the Flames will need to start showing some urgency in their play. Their home record this season is 1-3-1 and Calgary has allowed 20 goals at home so far. Tonight they owe their fans some good hockey after the loss in Vancouver on Saturday night. On paper Calgary averages more goals and takes more shots than does Minnesota and with that said, as long as their blueliners can get it together Calgary should come away with the win.
Our sometimes lackluster defense which is good some games and bad during others, has made Irving’s job tougher. Even so, Leland managed to stop 60 shots in the last two games played and has looked good. Tonight will mark his 10th start of his career and perhaps his last if Kipursoff is back on Wednesday. If that’s the case, Irving will want to make this game count.
Irving will need to watch out for Parise who leads the Wild with 10 points. He has just 1 point in his last 6 games and will definitely want to put up some points tonight. Another threat on Minnesota is Setoguchi who just broke a slump scoring his first goal against Nashville.
If the Flames want to win tonight they will need to be a completely different team than the one we saw Saturday in Vancouver. They need to pick up where they left off in Columbus and put the game in Vancouver behind them.
That’s all for today folks,
Thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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