The 20-13-6 Calgary Flames are hosting the 19-19-5 Vancouver Canucks tonight at 8pm for their first meeting of the season. Coming off a 5-1 beat down by the St. Louis Blues; expect a focused start from the home team.
In opposite fashion, the Canucks won their last game 5-1 over the Dave Lowry coached Winnipeg Jets. A game in which rumoured trade candidate JT Miller scored three goals and notched one assist. Defenseman Tucker Poolman was the only member of the Vancouver blue line to not record at least one point.
With the hiccup against St. Louis aside, the Flames have been playing stellar hockey of late. The first line in particular has been finding the back of the net with great success in their last five games. Johnny Gaudreau has a goal and 11 assists and Matthew Tkachuk has four goals and eight assists over that time.
Along with Elias Lindholm, those two form the most successful line in the NHL in terms of goal differential. They have scored 43 and only allowed 11 at 5v5. That is a differential of 3.37. Per Harman Dayal at the Athletic, the second highest goal differential is the 2.39 posted by Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen.
In other words, the Flames’ first line is the best two-way line in the league. It’s not even close.
Standing in the way of the continued success of this line tonight is 26 year old Thatcher Demko. While his .917 save percentage doesn’t seem like a threat, he has certainly proved he can steal a game on any given night.
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Lucic-Monahan-Dube Lewis-Ruzicka-Ritchie
Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Scouting Bruins/Coyotes Flames scout Don Maloney was in Arizona yesterday taking in a 2-1 Bruins victory over the Arizona Coyotes.
A good opportunity to get a look at trade block resident Jake Debrusk. His salary is 4.85 million this season and would need to be qualified as an RFA at that amount in the offseason— tough sell for Boston GM Don Sweeney. The 6’0… 196lb 25 year old has seven goals and seven assists in 34 games this season. He carries a cap hit of 3.675 this season.
Other players he likely wanted a viewing of include Phil Kessel, Jacob Chychrun, Christian Fischer, and Ryan Dzingel. Given the Coyotes strategy of stockpiling picks, it’s likely only Nick Shmaltz and Clayton Keller are off limits. They are signed to five and seven year contracts respectively.
While it is fun to discuss who Maloney may have been going out of his way to scout, his presence there may be simply due to him likely owning a home in the Glendale area. He was GM of the Coyotes from 2007-2016. In 2010, Don became the first ever recipient of the NHL GM of the year.
Following the John Chayka fiasco, the Arizona Coyotes hired current GM Bill Armstrong. His strategy has been to stockpile picks while liquidating on ice assets. These are the picks the Coyotes have in the first two rounds of the next three drafts. They will surely have more by the trade deadline on Monday, March 21.
That is on top of the 9th overall they stole from the Canucks last draft. That pick ended up being Dylan Guenther— who has all the tools to be a star in the NHL. His shot is already NHL calibre and his skating is already better than that of many NHLers. Here are his last two seasons in the WHL.
Good lord.
Is it too early to predict a Senators/Coyotes Cup Final in 2026?
Enjoy the game,
Trevor Neufeld