After an unsuccessful road trip, the\u00a0Calgary Flames (4-12-2, 10 points) return home having lost three in a row. They\u2019ll try to get back into the win column when they host the upstart\u00a0San Jose Sharks (8-6-3, 19 points), low-key one of the most fun groups of players to watch in the National Hockey League this season. Can the Flames find their mojo again? Or are they merely going to be fodder for the Sharks?<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s broadcast begins at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.<\/p>\n
The Flames<\/p>\n
Jonathan Huberdeau \u2013 Morgan Frost \u2013 Matt Coronato
Rory Kerins \u2013 Nazem Kadri \u2013 Joel Farabee
Sam Honzek \u2013 Mikael Backlund \u2013 Blake Coleman
Ryan Lomberg \u2013 Connor Zary \u2013 Adam Klapka<\/p>\n
Yan Kuznetsov \u2013 MacKenzie Weegar
Kevin Bahl \u2013 Rasmus Andersson
Jake Bean \u2013 Brayden Pachal<\/p>\n
We\u2019re projecting Dustin Wolf to start in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The projected extra skaters look to be Joel Hanley and Yegor Sharangovich.<\/p>\n
It hasn\u2019t been all rainbows and sunshine in Calgary this season. The Flames have generally out-shot and out-possessed their opponents this season, but they\u2019ve struggled to convert puck possession into dangerous possession. Their shot maps generally look like donuts, with precious few high-danger chances in the middle of the ice. And unfortunately when the Flames have made defensive lapses, it\u2019s those high-danger chances that their opponents have been given.<\/p>\n
The margins were razor-thin for the Flames last season and they held it together. This season, the margins have not held, and so we\u2019re discussing a team that\u2019s won four games out of 18 to start the regular season.<\/p>\n
The Sharks<\/p>\n
Tyler Toffoli \u2013 Macklin Celebrini \u2013 Will Smith
William Eklund \u2013 Alexander Wennberg \u2013 Philipp Kurashev
Jeff Skinner \u2013 Ty Dellandrea \u2013 Collin Graf
Barclay Goodrow \u2013 Adam Gaudette \u2013 Ryan Reaves<\/p>\n
Mario Ferraro \u2013 John Klingberg
Dmitry Orlov \u2013 Shakir Mukhamadullin
Sam Dickinson \u2013 Vincent Desharnais<\/p>\n
We\u2019re projecting Yaroslav Askarov to start in net, backed up by Jakub Skarek. The projected extras are Timothy Liljegren and Nick Leddy.<\/p>\n
The Sharks are young, fun, and they can score a ton. They haven\u2019t lost in regulation since Oct. 28, and they\u2019re 6-0-1 since then. Prospect Macklin Celebrini has quickly morphed into the player that the Sharks hoped he could become. And his buddy Will Smith is no slouch either.<\/p>\n
They had to go through some on-ice pain to get there, but the Sharks may be a strong argument for why it might not be horrible for the Flames to get a high draft pick this year.<\/p>\n
Unavailable players<\/p>\n
The Flames are without Martin Pospisil and Zayne Parekh.<\/p>\n
The Sharks are without Carey Price, Logan Couture, Ryan Ellis, Michael Misa, Vincent Iorio and Alex Nedeljkovic.<\/p>\n
The numbers<\/p>\n
Flames<\/p>\n
Sharks<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
Wins<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
10 (.278)<\/p>\n
Points (%)<\/p>\n
19 (.559)<\/p>\n
53.7%
(7th)<\/p>\n
xGF%<\/p>\n
44.1%
(30th)<\/p>\n
11.5%
(32nd)<\/p>\n
PP%<\/p>\n
19.6%
(15th)<\/p>\n
77.8%
(18th)<\/p>\n
PK%<\/p>\n
75.4%
(24th)<\/p>\n
Head to head<\/p>\n
This is round one of four in this season series. They\u2019ll meet again in San Jose on Dec. 16, in Calgary on Jan. 31, and in San Jose again on Feb. 26.<\/p>\n
This article is brought to you by Platinum MitsubishiThis article is a presentation of Platinum Mitsubishi, family owned and operated by lifelong Calgarians. Home of the industry-leading 10-year, 160,000-kilometre powertrain warranty. Check out their showroom at 2720 Barlow Trail NE or online at www.mitsu.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an unsuccessful road trip, the\u00a0Calgary Flames (4-12-2, 10 points) return home having lost three in a row.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-282347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}