The 6-4-1 San Jose Sharks are in town finish out a five game home stand for the Calgary Flames. Team Red is on a ten game point streak carrying a 7-1-3 record through 11 games while the Sharks have lost two in a row including a 3-2 OT loss to New Jersey. They have been ravaged with COVID of late. Here is a look at the projected lineup courtesy of Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg):
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk
Coleman-Backlund-Pitlick
Lucic-Dube-Mangiapane
Richardson-Monahan-Lewis
Duehr
Hanifin-Andersson
Kylington-Tanev
Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Tkachuk gearing up
Good teams have the depth of talent to win while core players go through cold streaks. The Flames did exactly that to start the 21-22 season. Tkachuk had two goals and two assists in his first seven games; not near good enough for the highest paid player on the Flames. He was doing good work on the ice; things just weren’t going well for him. He was shooting around 8% with 2 goals in 25 shots.
In the last four games he has finally turned the page. He has four goals and three assists and has 19 shots. Great to see.
Down With the Sickness
The Sharks are dealing with COVID-19 issues. Coach Bob Boughner, forwards Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc, Matt Nieto, and defensemen Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Radim Simek are currently in COVID protocol and likely won’t be available for tonight’s game. The Flames are -235 favourites to win. Here’s hoping those that tested positive stay in good health.
(Courtesy of dailyfaceoff.com)
Give me Duehr or give me death
The Sharks are missing a good portion of their regulars including their top scorer. Their lineup is max fringe. Here’s who they ran with against the Devils courtesy of Ross McKeon (@rossmckeon):
Hatakka? Leonard? WEATHERBY?! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? JUST PUT WALKER DUEHR IN. THE OPPOSITION IS DRESSING A PRESEASON LINEUP.
King of the Hill
Calgary Native Adin Hill will be starting. His stats haven’t been very good after winning his first three games — He’s been 0-3-0 since then and has a .886 save percentage. Given their injuries and COVID; it’s probably safe to say his numbers are more of team stats. He’s starting some of the tougher games. Unfortunately for Adin, Reimer is playing lights-out with a .946 and 1.60 GAA. Here’s hoping he gets some consistent defence in front of him.
Fun fact: Adin Hill was drafted with one of the two third round picks traded to the Coyotes at the 2015 NHL Entry Draft to acquire the second round pick that was used to draft Oliver Kylington. The other third was used to draft winger Jens Lööke, who broke into the SHL this season and has 5 points in sixteen games.
AHL notes
The Stockton heat are on a seven game winning streak. Center Adam Ruzicka has 11 points in that time including seven goals. While his preseason was underwhelming, the guy has earned another look. 2019 first round pick Jakob Pelletier has nine points in that same time frame. Rookie goaltender David Wolf is 4-0-1 with a .949 save percentage and a 1.59 GAA. Adam Werner is no slouch either going 3-0-0 and .924%.
Obviously stats don’t tell the whole story. I’ll be getting AHLTV pretty soon so I can at least watch these games. If they could go ahead and make watching AHL games cheaper than Netflix and Amazon Prime combined that would be great. One observation from looking through box scores is that Connor Mackey is getting a lot of roughing penalties. Someone is trying to get into Darryl’s good books. He had a fight last game with left winger Phillip Di Giuseppe of the Abbotsford Canucks. 19 year old 2020 2nd round pick Yan Kuznetsov also had a fight in that game.
Game time is 7pm MT. Let’s see what this Weatherby fellow is all about.
Trevor Neufeld
Follow me on Twitter @Trevor_Neufeld 
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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