Finally.
After what was possibly the most dramatic offseason in Calgary Flames history, the team that Brad Treliving reconfigured will commence their season tonight. Here is the lineup per Pay Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg
Huberdeau-Lindholm-Toffoli Dube-Kadri-Mangiapane Coleman-Backlund-Lewis Lucic-Rooney-Ritchie Hanifin-Andersson Weegar-Tanev Zadorov-Stone
Markstrom Vladar
Behaving The Avalanche will be finishing out a back-to-back tonight after defeating the Chicago Blackhawks 5-2 last night. The game was a special teams slugfest.
Colorado PP: 4/6 Chicago PP: 2/3
One train of thought would be “OK. Let’s hope the Flames penalty kill is ready for a very hot powerplay.…
The other line of thinking may be “Even over two games, that level of efficiency isn’t sustainable. Expect the Avs powerplay to revert to the median.…
One thing you can guarantee will be that Flames Head Coach Darryl Sutter will be pounding it into his squad that they can’t be taking needless penalties. The Avalanche may not go 4/6, but they could certainly go 1/3 or 1/4. That goal could easily be the difference between winning and losing.
0/13? 5000 fans will be given free beer tonight prior to the game. That might be the organization saying “Hey, we may not have won a season opener in 12 years — we may be playing arguably the best professional hockey team on Earth — but here is a free beer.…
That’s right. Once again, we get to discuss it. The home opener curse. Twelve straight seasons. Last year it was a 5-2 loss to the Oilers followed by a 3-2 overtime loss to the Ducks before the Flames found their footing and starting playing to their identity.
Time will tell if the trend continues. At least the Flames get a team on a back-to-back that also are coming off a long Stanley Cup run.
Wildcard One questionable factor for the Flames will be the play of Jacob Markstrom. The massive Swede missed much of this week’s practices due to illness. Despite this, Jacob has been confirmed as the starting goalie tonight. Interesting.
Game time is 7:30pm MST. You can catch the feed on Sportsnet One.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld