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The Calgary youthful will take to the ice tonight against the Los Angeles Kings who have been on a rather hot streak.
Currently on a seven game winning streak, the Kings are going to be a handful for the Flames who have won only three games in their last seven. That said, Calgary has won five of their last ten, and while it hasn’t been as impressive as LA’s 7-3 record, they continue to keep their games quite close.
In fact, in just their last ten games played, Calgary has kept six games within one goal. And of the four games which were separated by more than one goal, they won two. If you ask me, that is all I would demand from my rebuilding team given the fact that they have been missing some key players in their lineup.
On that note, it appears that Calgary will continue to roll with youth in their lineup as Matt Stajan is likely to be out for an extended period of time as he recently lost his baby boy shortly after he and his wife gave birth. While I have not experienced this first hand and it is surely something which I could not fathom, a friend of mine recently went through the very same. It is nothing short of a tragedy to a young family, and I would not wish anyone to have to deal with this.
That being said, and not to turn this blog into a tear jerker, Matt and his wife will need time to mourn the loss of their son together, and hopefully grow much stronger as a couple from it. It is very difficult to have any positive attitude with respect to something like this, but hopefully the Stajan family and all their close friends grow much closer from the experience. It will certainly be difficult for the two to bear a child again in the future, if they decide to try again, and I wish the best upon both moving forward with their lives.
Onto tonight’s game, the Flames and Kings last met about two weeks ago where LA took a 2-0 win in front of a Calgary home crowd. Given the recent play of the Flames however, I do not expect a similar outcome. The Los Angeles Kings are bound for a loss, and I feel that it will be at the hands of the Calgary Flames.
As mentioned, many of the youngsters will be among the regular group tonight with injuries remaining to Curtis Glencross, Jiri Hudler, Dennis Wideman, Karri Ramo, Kevin Westgarth, and David Jones. There are no expected changes to the lineup other than the above, and it appers that Joni Ortio will get the start. Ortio has been quite good between the pipes so far this year, currently sitting with a team best 2.03 GAA and .916 SV%.
While he’s only played four games so far, he looks rather comfortable…despite a few instances where you can see his lack of experience at the NHL level. At times it appears that Joni fights the puck a little more than he should, but this will come with experience and games played at this level. His East-West movement is quite good, and he appears to have no real difficulty playing the puck which is an important aspect to strong goaltending in today's NHL. Here are you expected lineups for tonight!
Cammalleri – Backlund - Bouma Galiardi – Monahan - Colborne Reinhart – Granlund - Byron Hanowski – Knight - McGrattan
Giordano - Brodie Russell - Butler Smid - Wotherspoon
Ortio
For those who haven’t been keeping track, here are the stats for the rookies who have joined the lineup in recent games. With such a youthful lineup, the Flames and their rookies have been doing quite well, all things considered.
C Max Reinhart..............7gp 0g 1a 1pts +1 L Ben Hanowski............3gp 0g 1a 1pts -2 C Markus Granlund........6gp 2g 1a 3pts +2 D Tyler Wotherspoon....2gp 0g 1a 1pts 0
G Joni Ortio....................4gp 8ga 2.03GAA 95SA .916SV 2W 2L
That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading!