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Fresh off their first road win of the season the Calgary Flames are back at it again tonight as they take on the St. Louis Blues.
This will be a tough task for the Flames. Not only are the Blues a strong team off to a great 4-1-1 start, which has them sitting atop the Central Division, but the Blues are also rested while the Flames, well, are not.
The one thing the Flames do have going for them is the Blues are a little banged up. Jori Lehtera is still out with an injury and Jaden Schwartz just returned to the lineup. Despite their strong record the Blues haven't entirely hit their stride yet as they're middle of the pack in terms of both possession and scoring chance numbers.
I think this game will be closer than the last time these two teams met up, although some personnel decisions Glen Gulutzan is making don't make me overly confident.
Here are the Flames' expected line combinations for tonight:
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Alex Chiasson
Kris Versteeg - Sam Bennett - Troy Brouwer
Lance Bouma - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Micheal Ferland - Matt Stajan - Matthew Tkachuk
Mark Giordano - Dennis Wideman
T.J. Brodie - Deryk Engelland
Nicklas Grossman - Dougie Hamilton
Brian Elliott
And the expected lines for the Blues:
Robby Fabbri - Paul Stastny - Alex Steen
David Perron - Jaden Schwartz - Vladimir Tarasenko
Magnus Paajarvi - Patrik Berglund - Nail Yakupov
Scottie Upshall - Kyle Brodziak - Ryan Reaves
Jay Bouwmeester - Alex Pietrangelo
Carl Gunnarsson - Kevin Shattenkirk
Joel Edmundson - Colton Parayko
Carter Hutton
A few notes:
1) I get wanting to give Elliott the net coming off a strong start but I'm not sure he should be getting the call tonight. The numbers tell us starting goaltenders in a back-to-back, as opposed to going with a capable backup, doesn't work out more often than not. Elliott will have extra motivation going up against his former team, however, he faced quite a bit of rubber last night and played 65 minutes + the shootout so it's not as if the game was a cake walk for him where he had limited active minutes.
2) In the latter half of back-to-backs it is usually a good idea to trim the minutes of players who logged a ton of minutes the night prior. Luckily the Flames have the ability to do that on defense as Dougie Hamilton, who should unquestionably play a top-4 role, played just over 15 minutes last night. His usage should go up to begin with but even more so since Wideman, Brodie and Giordano played 24+ minutes in Chicago.
3) Bouma played more than Frolik and Versteeg last night. Can this not be a thing?
Puck drop is just after 8:00 eastern and can be seen on Sportsnet-Flames and FS-MW.
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