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The Calgary Flames are heading to the American Airlines Center in Dallas tonight.
The Flames are 0-5-1 on the road since they last faced the Stars and tonight is a must win.
The Stars on aren’t fairing so well either as they have lost 4 straight and in their last outing, they only managed 8 shots in two periods, falling 8-1 to Chicago. This bodes well for the Flames who will be without Kiprusoff tonight because he and his wife are expecting the birth of their 2nd child. Danny Taylor was recalled to fly with the Flames to Dallas. If the Stars are still suffering from the same offensive woes as of late, it won’t be much of a challenge for Taylor if he starts over MacDonald who is the likely candidate for the starting position.
The Flames have the opportunity to sweep the series tonight after beating Dallas 4-3 at
home and then in their last road win 7-4. Since Dallas is coming off such a terrible loss,
Calgary will not want to give them any opportunity to gain confidence. The Flames were
able to put up a lot of goals against Dallas, so tonight they’ll want to extend the spread
as much as possible.
After the loss Saturday, I’d expected we’ll see Kari Lehtonen in net tonight as Dallas wants to secure a win themselves, although Calgary has only faced Bachman so far this year. Calgary has had 2 solid wins so they will need to keep that momentum rolling and not let Dallas in tonight’s game.
Dallas has some dangerous players that the Flames' blueliners will need to shut down. Jagr and Benn are capable of scoring, though in our last match ups, they were able to keep them at bay. While captain Brenden Morrow had two goals in their first match, tonight may present a new game as the Stars have only faced Irving so far this year and it is likely MacDonald who will get the start, though it has not yet been confirmed.
With respect to the history of the two teams this year, Cammalleri returned from injury to record a hattrick in their first very math up. He also scored in their 2nd match up, so hopefully he can earn some more points tonight in Dallas. Calgary was able to score 11 goals against Dallas in the last two games and the contributions came from 8 different players, so hopefully running up the score won’t be too difficult. Cervenka who is stepping in for an injured Backlund, had a goal against Dallas and hopefully he’ll have the chance to play against KHL line mate Jagr which should spark some competition and elevate his play.
Regarding Backlund, it appears he is out with a cracked bone in his foot, suffered from last game. In terms of a time frame, it has not yet been disclosed how long he will miss if any...but the young center has already missed the majority of the year with injuries and another injury is not looking good for the rookie. He is a game time decision as per coach Hartley.
For some reason, the Flames usually struggle in the games that they should win, so
tonight will still be a challenge for the Flames. Especially because they have not been
able to extend a win streak past 2 yet this season.
A win tonight though will put Calgary above Dallas in the Western conference and tied with Edmonton, Nashville, and Columbus for 10th.
Thanks for reading!
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