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Flames Seek to Rebound as Red Hot Avalanche Roll in to Town

January 18, 2023, 6:41 PM ET [51 Comments]
Trevor Neufeld
Calgary Flames Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Colorado Avalanche (22-17-3) and Calgary Flames (21-15-9) certainly can commiserate on one matter.

After a brutal stretch where the team went 3-21-1 in 25 games, the Hockey Gods have begun to smile on the Chicago Blackhawks organization. The team featuring the star power of Alex Stalock and Kristian Reichel has put a dent in their chances at drafting Connor Bedard of late.

Four wins in five games sees their “lead” for 32nd place now gone. Johnny Gaudreau and the Columbus Blue Jackets find themselves tied in points (28) with two more games played (44) than Chicago’s 42.

Why is this relevant?

Both teams playing in the Saddledome tonight were humbled by a suddenly-hot 32nd place team last week. In fact, both clubs found themselves down 3-2 in the third and struggling to solve a team that had been outscored more than 2:1 since December 1, 2022.

This is all to say that Colorado and Calgary haven’t had seasons meetings the expectations of their respective fanbases.

In their last ten, Colorado has dropped games to lower-placed teams such as Vancouver, Arizona and the aforementioned Chicago.

Similarly, Calgary has dropped games to Chicago and Edmonton in their last ten.

The Flames are coming off a truly sloppy game in Nashville — a team sitting directly below them in the Western Conference wildcard race. Colorado sits one spot below Nashville and four points behind Calgary with two games in hand.

Losing two consecutive games to their two closest pursuers could have devastating repercussions.

A few notes on the game.

Hold the Cale
24-year-old Defenseman Cale Makar was announced as day-to-day this afternoon. He won’t play in tonight’s game. The Calgary native had two goals and an assist in Colorado’s most recent game. A 6-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings.


MacScorin’
The Flames may have their hands full in their own end tonight. Nathan MacKinnon comes into tonight with 11 points in his last five games. A grain of salt on that may be required — all five opposing teams are in the bottom half of the league in Goals Against Per Game Played. Detroit, Ottawa, Edmonton, Florida and Chicago.

It is still not a bad assumption to conclude that the first overall pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft is feeling confident with the puck.

Duelling Defence
Calgary has tightened up their defence of late. 2.89 goals against per game since the beginning of January. Interestingly enough, their next two opponents, Colorado and Tampa Bay have put up the exact same amount of goals against (20) in the exact same amount of games (7) over that time.

The three teams sit tied for 8th in that category in the new year.

Some Things Never Change
The Colorado Avalanche, as usual, sit near the bottom of the league in faceoff percentage. 45.8% on the season has them ranked 28th. It gets worse if you check out their results of late. 43.2% in January puts them dead last over that time.

Despite struggling to establish possession at puck drop, the Avalanche do fine at getting it back. Their 54% shot attempts percentage rank them 7th in January. In 2nd place over that time? Calgary at 55.2%.

Projected Lineup — Calgary Flames
Courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg

Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli
Lucic-Kadri-Huberdeau
Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman
Lewis-Ruzicka-Duehr

Hanifin-Andersson
Weegar-Tanev
Zadorov-Stone

Markstrom
Vladar


All Carrot, No Stick
You have to admire Darryl Sutter’s loyalty to his regulars.

Fresh off one of their weaker offensive performances this season — passes that came up short, poor efforts recovering pucks, a general lack of urgency while down 2-1 with the clock running out — one would imagine today’s game would be an ample opportunity to give rookie Jakob Pelletier his first NHL appearance.

There are several options as to who could draw out for a game. Adam Ruzicka, whose final shift against the Predators concluded with 9:51 in the third period, wouldn’t create too many waves. Ruzicka finished the night with 7:49 of ice time. Nor would Trevor Lewis, who has been a healthy scratch many times in his career.

A single Calgary forward managed to keep their head above water in shot attempts. Dillon Dubé was on the ice for 25 for and 21 against. Every other Flames forward finished below 50% — a striking statistic given Calgary outshot Nashville 39-29.

You could take out almost any forward and make a point. The point gets underlined if Pelletier has a strong showing.

Puck drops around 7:40 pm MST. Catch the broadcast on Sportsnet West and TVA Sports in Canada. Altitude 2 in the States.

Trevor Neufeld


@Trevor_Neufeld


Stats via naturalstattrick.com, moneypuck.com, and nhl.com.
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