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The Calgary Flames opened up their mini homestand with a shutout victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Despite some up and down play they are now 6-3-1 in their last and are slowly starting to climb up the Western Conference standings. They'll be looking to continue that tonight against the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild are off to a respectable 11-8-3 record under new head coach Bruce Boudreau. They have, however, struggled away from home winning just four of 12 games thus far.
The Flames are hoping for that trend to continue as with a win, and some help, they could find themselves in a playoff spot by the end of the night.
There is a ton of season remaining, and the Flames have played more games than the teams they are chasing, but that'd be impressive given the start they had.
Here are the expected line combinations for the Flames:
Kris Versteeg - Sean Monahan - Troy Brouwer
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Sam Bennett - Matt Stajan - Alex Chiasson
Micheal Ferland - Freddie Hamilton - Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano - Dougie Hamilton
T.J. Brodie - Dennis Wideman
Jyrki Jokipakka - Deryk Engelland
Chad Johnson
And the expected lines for the Wild:
Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Charlie Coyle
Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund
Nino Niederreiter - Erik Haula - Jason Pominville
Tyler Graovac - Zack Mitchell - Chris Stewart
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella - Jonas Brodin
Gustav Olafsson - Mathew Dumba
Devan Dubnyk
A few notes:
1) Over the last 10 games, the Wild have struggled immensely on the penalty kill. They've killed off just over 70% of their penalties and are allowing the 5th most shot attempts/60 and 4th most scoring chances/60 over that span.
2) The Wild are the NHL's 5th best team at suppressing scoring chances at full-strength. The Flames are 28th in terms of generating scoring chances in that game state. They'll need to take advantage of Minnesota's poor PK because they probably won't get many good looks at 5v5.
3) Since the beginning of the 2015-16 season, Dubnyk is 2nd in overall save percentage while Johnson ranks 4th. This should be a low-scoring game.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 9:00 eastern and can be seen on SN-West, FS-WI, and FS-N+.
Recent posts:
On Johnson's dominant run, Monahan showing signs of life and more
Flames fall to Islanders but survive lengthy road trip
Predicting the Pacific Division standings
Pacific Division bold predictions
Pacific Division breakout players
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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