The 4-1-0 Calgary Flames are in an odd position tonight. They face the resolve of a very seasoned veteran Pittsburgh Penguins group.
Let’s go back to early in the second period of the Penguins-Oilers game last night.
The 4-0-1 (at the time) Pittsburgh Penguins went ahead 3-1 off of a goal from Bryan Rust his third of the season. Earlier in the game Sidney Crosby had scored to take the lead. His eleventh point in six games. Rust’s goal had them well on their way to widening their lead for best offence in the NHL.
Amid a fleury of transition, Jeff Petry might have made an error in retrospect. He took out the legs of Connor McDavid as the two charged back towards the Penguins net.
McDavid crashed into the post in the tailbone/hip area and looked visibly hurt.
The Oilers star returned to play after a couple minutes — and unfortunately for the visiting team, the Oilers seemed to take Petry’s play personally. For the sake of brevity, we’ll say, five unanswered goals later and the Penguins left Edmonton with their first regulation loss of the season.
It’s worth noting that McDavid didn’t register a point on any of those goals.
Flames fans now have to be wondering whether we’ll see the opposition broken and demoralized tonight. One could certainly argue that the Invisible Hand of Momentum might be handing the Flames an easy win over a team finishing out a road back-to-back.
Or, we could be seeing an early resolve check for one of the more legendary cores in NHL history. Albeit in a later stage of their story.
Projected lineup courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg
Huberdeau-Lindholm-Toffoli Dube-Kadri-Mangiapane Coleman-Backlund-Lewis Lucic-Rooney-Ritchie Weegar-Tanev Hanifin-Andersson Zadorov-Stone
Markstrom
Projected Penguins lines courtesy of dailyfaceoff.com. They’re using last game’s lines, so there may be a tweak here or there.
Heinen–Crosby–Rakell Zucker–Malkin–Rust McGinn–Carter–Kapanen Caggiula–Poehling–Archibald
Dumolin–Letang Pettersson–Petry Joseph–Rutta
DeSmith
Developing a Method Does anyone feel like the Flames are really clicking yet? They’ve shown uncanny resolve in comeback wins over Carolina and Vegas, but multiple units still seem to be working out their linemates. The first line being the elephant in the room.
5v5 Production Through Five Games Huberdeau: 0G 1A -1 Lindholm: 0G 0A -3 Toffoli: 0G 0A -1
Their production is made up nearly entirely on the powerplay.
Powerplay Production Through Five Games Huberdeau: 0G 3A Lindholm: 2G 0A Toffoli: 2G 1A
There is plenty of time to iron out the wrinkles, but the chemistry simply seems off.
Huberdeau excelled with faster linemates in Florida. While Sam Bennett and Anthony Duclair are far from elite, they kept the defence on their heels with their speed and tenacity in transition. One has to wonder if Darryl will eventually try out a different top nine configuration.
An Opportunity Hulking Flames left winger admitted that it was a bodycheck from Josh Archibald that had him playing injured in round two last postseason. The 240lb 34 year old still doesn’t look entirely healthy.
One has to wonder what Milan will do if he happens to catch Archibald in the crosshairs tonight. Certainly something to keep an eye out for.
Game time is 7:00pm MST. Local broadcast is on Sportsnet West and Sportsnet One. Away feed is on AT&T Sportsnet.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via naturalstattrick.com and NHL.com. Graphic via nhl.com.