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The Calgary Flames are in Florida tonight to take on the Panthers in a battle between two of the hottest teams in the NHL.
The Flames have won five consecutive outings – all against teams in or around a playoff spot – and own a 7-2-1 record over their last 10, while the Panthers are 6-3-1 during that same span.
Florida hasn't been dominant by any means but they've been playing teams close at 5v5 – they've controlled 48% of the attempts and chances – and, led by James Reimer, their goaltending has taken care of the rest. They have a .941 save percentage at 5v5 during this hot stretch, which will win you a lot of games.
The Flames can certainly attest to that as, though their underlying numbers have been better than the Panthers', .947 goaltending at 5v5 has hid a lot of their problems – like last night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Calgary probably won't play its best hockey in the latter half of a road back-to-back so they'll need the goaltending to be good again if this winning streak is going to reach six.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Micheal Ferland
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Troy Brouwer
Sam Bennett - Mark Jankowski - Garnet Hathaway
Curtis Lazar - Matt Stajan - Andrew Mangiapane
Mark Giordano - Dougie Hamilton
T.J. Brodie - Travis Hamonic
Brett Kulak - Michael Stone
David Rittich*
*expected but not confirmed
Florida (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Jonathan Huberdeau - Aleksander Barkov - Evgeny Dadonov
Jamie McGinn - Vincent Trocheck - Nick Bjugstad
Connor Brickley - Denis Malgin - Radim Vrbata
Micheal Haley - Derek MacKenzie - Colton Sceviour
Michael Matheson - Aaron Ekblad
Keith Yandle - Mark Pysyk
Ian McCoshen - Alex Petrovic
James Reimer
What to watch:
1) Calgary's top line is sizzling right now. Ferland has scored six 5v5 goals in his last eight games and put forth four consecutive multi-point games while Gaudreau and Monahan have 10 and eight points respectively over the last five contests. They surprisingly had a big night against a very good Tampa Bay 2nd line with Victor Hedman playing behind them – for half the game, anyway – but they'll face another stiff test in this one against a rested Barkov line.
2) Calgary's 2nd line has an expected goals for% below 40 with Troy Brouwer on it instead of Michael Frolik. As good as Tkachuk and Backlund are, I think it's only a matter of time before this unit gets exposed and I think the Trocheck line, which has been very good of late, could be the one to do it.
3) The Panthers are tied for 8th in penalties taken while the Flames are just behind them in 10th. These teams do struggle with discipline at times so don't be surprised if there is a lot of special teams play in this one.
4) Rittich is 3-0-1 with a .938 save percentage through four starts and he hasn't allowed more than two goals in any of them. He's been great so far and the Flames need that to be the case again as he'll have a fatigued team in front of him (this is Calgary's third game in four nights).
5) Young Sam Bennett™ has been pretty productive after a really slow start but I still think he's in for some more positive regression. He ranks 2nd on the Flames in 5v5 chances with 83 yet has just five goals to show for it. He's probably still due for some fortunate bounces like we saw last night.
Puck drop is just after 7:30 eastern and can be seen on SNF and FS-F.
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