Part three of the Calgary Flames’ four-game California road trip finds the team in Los Angeles to play the red-hot 18-12-5 LA Kings.
Both teams have been given a running start in terms of momentum heading into this game. LA beat Anaheim and San Jose in the past seven days. Calgary played San Jose the day after the Kings beat them and swept a two-game series against the Sharks.
Tonight will be LA’s third game in seven days and Calgary’s fourth in the same amount of time. Both teams will be playing game one of respective back-to-backs. Calgary plays Anaheim tomorrow and LA plays Arizona.
New Cop on the Beat
Kings GM Rob Blake turned heads three weeks ago when he put goaltender-of-the-future Cal Petersen on waivers for the purpose of demotion. For years he has been known as the starter waiting for Jonathan Quick to retire before he takes over. The 28-year-old from Waterloo, Iowa carries a cap hit of five million for two more seasons after this one.
His 5-3-2 record, .868 save percentage this season and hefty salary kept him unclaimed through the waivers process and he’s put up a sparkling .938 sv% and a 2.01 goals against average in six games with the Ontario Reign of the AHL.
Unfortunately for Cal, his replacement is causing some controversy. Pheonix Copley has won five of six games he’s started. His .912 Sv% and 2.43 GAA outclasses Jonathan Quick and Cal Petersen by a vast margin. Neither of them is saving pucks at above the .900 mark.
A couple of notes on Copley. No, I’m not misspelling “Phoenix”. His name is Pheonix.
Second, he’s from North Pole, Alaska. A town known for its permanent Christmas decorations. Here’s a brief bit on the town from Wikipedia.
North Pole is a small Alaskan city, near Fairbanks. It's known for its year-round Christmas decorations, including candy cane–striped street lights. Santa Claus House is a Christmas store with walls covered in children’s letters to Santa and a huge Santa statue outside. Streets have names like Kris Kringle Drive and Mistletoe Lane.
This couldn’t be timed worse. Good luck scoring on an NHL goalie from the North Pole this close to Christmas. Tonight is a schedule loss.
Flames Projected Lineup
Vladar starts. No expected changes beyond that.
Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli
Huberdeau-Kadri-Lucic
Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman
Ruzicka-Lewis-Ritchie/Phillips
Hanifin-Andersson
Weegar-Tanev
Mackey-Stone
Vladar
Markstrom
The Big Man
A goal, an assist, and a glorious +4 in Calgary’s 7-3 beat down of the San Jose Sharks. It’s nice to see Milan Lucic silence the haters. He’s projected to stay on Huberdeau and Kadri’s line.
Another High-Scoring Affair?
Flames faithful may remember the last game between these two teams. Less than two minutes into the second period, Calgary had secured a 5-2 lead. As the period went on, the wheels started coming off. LA put three past Jacob Markstrom in the second half of the game. The only factor keeping the game from overtime was Adam Ruzicka putting away an Elias Lindholm rebound in the late second period.
The game ended 6-5. One has to wonder if we’ll see another slugfest on the score sheet. With two overachieving backups starting tonight, maybe you should bet on less than 11 goals being scored this time around.
The North Pole. Tonight the Flames are trying to score on a goalie from the NORTH POLE.
Don’t miss it.
Another late one. Game time is 8:30 pm MST. Broadcast is on Sportsnet West in Canada and Bally Sports West in the States.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats and info via capfriendly.com, nhl.com, eliteprospects.com, and Wikipedia.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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