Five things to watch for when the Calgary Flames take on the Columbus Blue Jackets:
1. Elite top pairings Calgary and Columbus are among the very few teams that a) have two all-star caliber talents on the top pairing and; b) have been lucky enough to keep them together for a full season.
Despite playing big minutes against top competition on a nightly basis, both pairings have posted excellent numbers across the board.
Mark Giordano and Dougie Hamilton fare better in terms of controlling the shots and chances while Zach Werenski and Seth Jones have gotten the better of the results, because of course.
It will be fun to see which pairing makes more of an impact tonight.
2. PDA Speaking of the Giordano - Hamilton pairing, they will likely have their hands full trying to slow down Columbus' top line of Artemi Panarin, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Cam Atkinson.
They have been downright dominant since assembled. In just under 270 minutes together at 5v5, the PDA line has controlled 57.8% of the shot attempts, out-scored opponents 14-7, and drawn nine more penalties than they've taken.
With the Jackets in the thick of a heated playoff race, you can bet they'll lean heavily on their big guns. 3. Will Sam Bennett catch fire?
By now you all know Bennett is either really good or completely invisible and there isn't much time spent in-between. Lately it's been the former. Despite having tallied only three 5v5 points in his last 13, he ranks top-20 in chance generation and has posted excellent underlying numbers in that time. It'd be nice to see him rewarded for his efforts so he can feel good about himself heading into the off-season. His recent play deserves better results than he's been getting.
4. Scoring woes likely to continue The Flames have scored three goals in the last five games and 12 in their last nine games. The offense has been absolutely dreadful and there's not much reason to expect any different tonight.
For one, the Blue Jackets are playing excellent hockey. There's also some guy named Sergei Bobrovsky who could be a problem.
At 5v5, 32 goaltenders have played at least 1,500 minutes this season. Pekka Rinne is the only one who has stopped shots at a higher clip than Bobrovsky.
An ice cold offense vs an elite goaltender playing behind a desperate team will likely make this another long night.
5. Thomas Vanek fitting like a glove Vanek has been surprisingly good as a member of the Blue Jackets. In 14 games he has tallied 13 points (seven goals, six assists) while piling up the shots. At 5v5, he's averaging 20.33 shot attempts/60. For perspective, Nathan MacKinnon has averaged 20.35 attempts/60 over the same span. I wasn't sold on Vanek as a deadline pick up but he's provided a big time offensive boost for a Jackets team that needed it.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Sam Bennett - Mikael Backlund - Troy Brouwer Micheal Ferland - Nick Shore - Curtis Lazar Michael Frolik - Mark Jankowski - Chris Stewart Tanner Glass - Matt Stajan - Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano - Dougie Hamilton Michael Stone - Travis Hamonic Brett Kulak - Rasmus Andersson
Jon Gillies
Columbus (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Artemi Panarin - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Cam Atkinson Boone Jenner - Alexander Wennberg - Thomas Vanek Sonny Milano - Brandon Dubinsky - Oliver Bjorkstrand Markus Hannikainen - Mark Letestu - Matt Calvert
Zach Werenski - Seth Jones Ian Cole - David Savard Ryan Murray - Markus Nutivaara
Sergei Bobrovsky
Puck drop is just after 9:00 eastern and can be seen on SNW and FS-O.
Note: data via NaturalStatTrick.com and Corsica.Hockey.
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