Here are five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Pittsburgh Penguins:
1. It’s not getting easier Calgary has already played 26 games, equalled by only Detroit and Edmonton. Despite more opportunity than almost every team in the league, the Flames rank 31st in 5v5 goals. Their offense has struggled all year and still managed to reach new lows over the last couple of weeks.
Given the state of their attack, it’s not an exaggeration to say the Penguins are probably the last team the Flames want to run into right now.
The Penguins are allowing 49.99 attempts/60 and 1.87 expected goals/60 on the year. Both totals rank them 1st in the NHL. They do a great job of limiting volume and a Matt Murray/Tristan Jarry tandem has proven more than capable of cleaning up the occasional mess.
Like against Philadelphia, the Flames are going to have a tough time generating quality chances with any sort of regularity. They must be opportunistic when they do get a good look at the net.
2. T.J. Brodie’s return Brodie has sat out five consecutive games since suffering a scary episode during practice just over a week ago. He’s gone through a ton of tests since and, thankfully, passed every single one of them. The expectation is he’s a full-go and will be back on the top pairing with Mark Giordano. I’m interested to see what kind of spark his return could provide. He’s a very well-liked guy so everyone will no doubt be thrilled to see him back to health and playing again. I know I will be.
3. Milan Lucic’s power play usage Lucic played nearly two minutes on the top power play unit vs Philadelphia. In that time, the Flames did not register a single shot on goal and actually gave up a scoring chance. Suffice to say, his presence was not the solution to get the PP on track. Let’s hope we don’t have to suffer through that again vs one of the better penalty killing teams in the NHL.
4. A dynamic trio The Jake Guentzel - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust trio has been absolutely lethal since assembled, controlling 65% of the scoring chances and ~69% of the expected goals through nearly 66 minutes of action. With so many injuries throughout the lineup, and the ability to control matchups, you can bet Mike Sullivan will be looking to keep this line away from Calgary’s top players and put them in advantageous situations – such as against Michael Stone’s pairing. We’ll see if the Flames can survive.
5. Jumping ahead The Calgary Flames are on an unbelievable run, folks; and not a good one. They have allowed the opening goal in nine consecutive games and haven’t held a lead since the 3rd period of November 7th’s game against New Jersey. It is *checks calendar* November 25th. I know I stress this time and time again but, as an offensively starved team lacking confidence, I really think it would do wonders if they could get off to a good start and play from ahead for once – especially vs a team missing Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Justin Schultz, and an abundance of quality offensive contributors.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Elias Lindholm Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Andrew Mangiapane Milan Lucic - Derek Ryan - Dillon Dube Zac Rinaldo - Mark Jankowski - Michael Frolik
Mark Giordano - T.J. Brodie Noah Hanifin - Rasmus Andersson Oliver Kylington - Michael Stone
David Rittich
Pittsburgh (via DailyFaceoff.com) Jake Guentzel - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust Alex Galchenyuk - Jared McCann - Brandon Tanev Dominik Kahun - Dominik Simon - Patric Hornqvist Zach Aston-Reese - Teddy Blueger - Sam Lafferty
Brian Dumolin - John Marino Jack Johnson - Chad Ruhwedel Marcus Pettersson - Zach Trotman
Matt Murray
Puck drop is just after 7:00 p.m. Eastern and can be seen on SNW, ATTSN-PT, and TVAS.
Numbers via naturalstattrick.com Recent posts: