It’s a tale of two passing trains tonight as the Calgary Flames (10-10-3, 23 pts) face off against the Vancouver Canucks (15-8-1, 31 pts). Heading into their last meeting on Nov. 16, the Canucks had a third-place record of 12-3-1. The Flames, meanwhile, held 27th place record of 5-8-2. Including the 5-2 Calgary win on the 16th, since then the Flames are a third-place 5-2-1 while the Canucks are a 27th place 3-5-0.
Lets get to it.
New Kid on the Block
Flames GM Craig Conroy added some insurance on the Wranglers back end today with the signing of Mark Pysyk. The Sherwood Park native has had a tough journey recovering from a torn Achilles immediately prior to last season. The 31-year-old then signed a PTO with the Penguins before suffering another “lower body” setback. The right shot defenceman had been close to earning a spot on the Penguins prior to that development.
Mark then signed an AHL Tryout Agreement that guaranteed 25 games. Eight games into the tryout, he was signed by Calgary and waived for the purpose of assignment to the Wranglers.
Pysyk has ten seasons of NHL experience.
Zad’s Back
Tonight will be defenceman Nikita Zadorov’s first game as a Canuck. Unfortunately, the hard-hitting Russian will have some familiar targets in his old team, the Calgary Flames. Zadorov was traded to Vancouver on Friday in exchange for a 2024 fifth round pick and a 2026 third round pick.
Reliably Exciting
Calgary trailed by one goal or more to start the third period in ten of 14 November games. Despite proverbially shooting themselves in the foot with such frequency, the team put up a 4-4-2 record and a .400 win percentage under those circumstances.
Can We Call It an Advantage?
The Calgary Flames power play broke even over November. Three power play goals, three short handed goals against. Woof.
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup
Courtesy of Pat Steinberg.
@Fan960Steinberg
Mangiapane-Lindholm-Sharangovich
Zary-Kadri-Pospisil
Huberdeau-Backlund-Coleman
Greer-Ruzicka-Dube
Weegar-Andersson
Hanifin-Tanev
Gilbert-Oesterle
Markstrom
Vladar
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lineup
Courtesy of Thomas Drance.
@ThomasDrance
Kuzmenko-Pettersson-Mikheyev
PDG-Miller-Boeser
Joshua-Blueger-Garland
Höglander-Åman-Lafferty
Hughes-Hronek
Cole-Juulsen
Friedman-Myers
Demko
Time: 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
TV: Sportsnet One, Sportsnet West, CityTV, Sportsnet Pacific
Click for more Flames coverage from Trevor Neufeld.
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats courtesy of eliteprospects.com and theahl.com.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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