With the season winding down and only three games remaining on the schedule, tonight’s results may be the decider as to whether the Flames make the playoffs.
Starting at 5:00 pm MST, we have the Winnipeg Jets taking on the Nashville Predators. Both teams hold a game in hand on the Flames. Both teams are within a point in the race for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference.
Here’s hoping that game ends in a regulation win.
As for the 37-27-15 Calgary Flames, a win against the 35-36-7 Vancouver Canucks on the Hockey Night in Canada late broadcast would be enough to keep pace. Easier said than done.
Let’s get into it.
One Goal Games We’ve seen these two teams play each other three times this season. You don’t want to oversimplify, but all three games were more or less coin flips.
Game one on December 14 ended up a 4-3 shootout win for Vancouver. The next instance was the New Year’s game. Calgary took a 3-0 lead and managed to hold off Vancouver for a 3-2 win. Give the Canucks another five to ten minutes and that game was likely tied.
Game three was played nine days ago — it featured three blown Canucks leads. The Flames won it off of a Tyler Toffoli overtime goal. There were more than enough chances both ways for the score to be completely different with just a small deviance in luck.
It’s not ideal for the season to come down to a coin flip of a game, but it should be a fun experience at least.
Should the Nashville Predators win against the Jets tonight — and should the Flames win their coin flip game against the Canucks — the stakes for the Monday Flames-Predators game would be deliciously high.
With that said, if you’re 79 games into this rollercoaster of a season and expect anything to go according to the plan, I have two words for you: Good. Luck.
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup Darryl loves to keep his cards hidden on road games. Here are yesterday’s practice lines courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg
Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli Huberdeau-Backlund-Mangiapane Ritchie-Kadri-Coleman Lucic-Lewis-Duehr Pelletier-Ruzicka-Coronato Weegar-Andersson Hanifin-Tanev Zadorov-Stecher Gilbert-Stone
Markstrom Vladar
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lineup Similar situation to the Flames. Here are yesterday’s practice lines courtesy of Brendan Batchelor. @BatchHockey
Kravtsov-Pettersson-Garland Di Giuseppe-Miller-Boeser Joshua-à…man-Studnicka Kuzmenko/McDonough-Dries-Beauvillier
Hughes-Burroughs Hirose-Myers Bear-McWard
Demko Delia
New Kit On the Block Keep an eye out for Akito Hirose on the Vancouver blueline tonight. #36.
Freshly signed out of Minnesota State University, the 23 year old has gotten into three games with the Canucks. Two assists in those three games — certainly not a bad start.
He plays a very concise game. You can tell he knows where he wants to put the puck a few seconds before he gets it. Good signing. He played over 20:30 against the Blackhawks on Thursday and didn’t look out of place.
The only knock is his size. 6’0…, 170lbs. With a blueline already featuring Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Travis Dermott, and Ethan Bear, how comfortable is notoriously tough head coach Rick Tochett with rolling out such an undersized back end?
One more thing about Akito: He’s a Calgary kid. He played at Edge before heading out to Salmon Arm of the BCHL.
Game time is 8:00 pm MST. Catch the broadcast on CBC, Sportsnet and City.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via eliteprospects.com and nhl.com.