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Five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2:
1. Defending the slot
Mike Smith played very well in the opening game. He made some flashy glove saves and stopped every shot that came his way. His performance has garnered plenty of praise and rightfully so. In saying that, the defense also deserves a lot of credit because they did a great job of keeping Avalanche players away from the net. They didn't allow shots in dangerous areas with any consistency, especially at 5v5.
Though I think David Rittich is the better goaltender, I'm not overly concerned about Smith holding up if the Flames continue to defend that well in front of him.
2. One more chance
The 3rd line of Sam Bennett, Mark Jankowski, and James Neal was not overly good in the opener. It just wasn't. The latter two were on the ice for .03 expected goals at 5v5 and, besides Neal taking a healthy run at Gabriel Landeskog, none of them really did anything of note.
The Bennett, Jankowski, Austin Czarnik trio has controlled 60% of the shot attempts, chances, and expected goals in their time together. If the 3rd line is quiet again tonight, perhaps it will be time to shake things up and bring Czarnik back into the mix.
3. Special teams
There was every reason to expect a lot of special teams play in this series, and that's what we saw in Game 1 with the two sides combining to take nine minor penalties. Combine discipline issues with the friction that's already developing and we can probably expect more of the same tonight. I think special teams will be a big story again – perhaps more in this series than any other.
4. Time to wake up
Johnny Gaudreau and co. spent a lot of their time against the Carl Soderberg line and Erik Johnson pairing. You'd certainly expect Calgary's top line to get the better of the play against them. That didn't really happen. Gaudreau was fine but, as a whole, the top line underwhelmed once again combining for just one high-danger chance at 5v5. That's simply not good enough. If they're not going to produce when Bill Peters can get them favorable matchups against a No. 8 seed, that's pretty discouraging. I'd expect, and hope for, a better effort tonight.
5. Crazy usage
Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog played 25 minutes in Game 1. Mikko Rantanen, in his first game back, played more than 21 minutes. The Avs gave their top weapons as much ice as they could handle, and I have no doubt that will be the case tonight as well. That means we should see the same cast of characters – 3M, Mark Giordano, and T.J. Brodie – atop the team's leaderboard in ice once again. I thought 3M, in particular, was spectacular in G1, and I'm interested to see if they can duplicate that kind of performance. It's tough to get the better of a talent like MacKinnon on a nightly basis.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau -Sean Monahan - Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik
Sam Bennett - Mark Jankowski - James Neal
Andrew Mangiapane - Derek Ryan - Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano - T.J. Brodie
Noah Hanifin - Travis Hamonic
Oscar Fantenberg - Rasmus Andersson
Mike Smith
Colorado (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Alexander Kerfoot
Colin Wilson - Carl Soderberg - Mikko Rantanen
Matt Nieto - Derick Brassard - J.T. Compher
Gabriel Bourque - Tyson Jost - Matt Calvert
Sam Girard - Erik Johnson
Nikita Zadorov - Tyson Barrie
Ian Cole - Patrik Nemeth
Philipp Grubauer
Puck drop is just after 10:30 eastern and can be seen on CBC, SN, TVAS, NBCSN, and ALT.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
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