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Here are five things to watch when the Calgary Flames take on the Dallas Stars:
1. Opportunistic scoring
There’s slow hockey, and then there is Dallas Stars hockey. They play at the slowest expected goal pace in the league. They don’t generate a lot and they don’t give much up, ranking 4th in preventing scoring chances, 2nd in high-danger chances, and 1st in expected goals on a per 60 minute basis. As such, it should be no surprise they rank 3rd in actual goals against/60 – especially with the goaltenders they have.
Barring an out of character performance, there probably won’t be many defensive breakdowns and missed assignments for the Flames to pounce on. They’re going to have to be opportunistic.
2. Promising returns
Rasmus Andersson enjoyed a lot of success when given top-4 minutes last season. The potential caveat was that he played alongside the Norris Trophy winner. Well, he’s getting a chance to play big minutes with Noah Hanifin on the 2nd unit right now. So far, so good. The pairing owns a 55.05 CF% and 59.24 xGF% through almost 60 minutes together. I’m interested to see if they can maintain that level of play tonight. While the Stars aren’t an offensive powerhouse they have, uh, stars on each of their top lines so there is no easy matchup.
3. Don’t sleep on Denis
Tyler Seguin. Alexander Radulov. Joe Pavelski. Jamie Benn. There are no shortage of big names in the Stars’ lineup. None of those big names have done as good of a job generating opportunities as Denis Gurianov. He’s averaging 16.97 attempts and 11.59 chances per 60 minutes of play (5v5). Both totals lead not only the Stars, but the Flames. Don’t be surprised if he makes an impact in this one.
4. A dynamic power play
The Stars’ 5v5 offense is highly mediocre. They are really dangerous on the man advantage, though. They rank 3rd in attempts/60, 3rd in chances/60 and 4th in expected goals/60. Generating opportunities is not much of an issue for them. While converting has been, it’s fair to assume they’ll have better results moving forward so long as the chances continue to come. Calgary best play a little more disciplined tonight.
5. The stars must step up
Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Elias Lindholm have pretty underwhelming on-ice numbers. Their individual generation totals aren’t great either. On a per minute basis, Gaudreau ranks 9th on the Flames in shot attempts and he’s the top-man of the trio. Monahan sits 11th and Lindholm 12th. That’s simply not good enough.
Here are the projected lineups:
Calgary
Johnny Gaudreau - Sean Monahan - Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Andrew Mangiapane
Sam Bennett - Derek Ryan - Michael Frolik
Milan Lucic - Mark Jankowski - Tobias Rieder
Mark Giordano - Travis Hamonic
Noah Hanifin - Rasmus Andersson
T.J. Brodie - Michael Stone
David Rittich
Dallas (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Jamie Benn - Justin Dowling - Tyler Seguin
Alexander Radulov - Jason Dickinson - Corey Perry
Nicholas Caamano - Joe Pavelski - Denis Gurianov
Andrew Cogliano - Radek Faksa - Blake Comeau
Esa Lindell - Andrej Sekera
Jamie Oleksiak - Miro Heiskanen
Joel Hanley - Taylor Fedun
Ben Bishop
Puck drop is just after 9:30 p.m. Eastern and can be seen on SN1 and FS-SW.
Numbers via naturalstattrick.com
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Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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