After playing pretty well on Saturday night en route to their first victory of the season, the Calgary Flames (1-1-0, 2 points) are back in action at the Scotiabank Saddledome tonight. This time, they face another divisional opponent in the form of the Los Angeles Kings (0-1-0, 0 points).
The puck drops at 7 p.m. MT on Sportsnet West (with Rick Ball and Kelly Hrudey) and Sportsnet 960 The Fan (with Derek Wills and Peter Loubardias).
The Flames
Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Gaudreau – Monahan – Lindholm
Tkachuk – Backlund – Bennett
Lucic – Ryan – Mangiapane
Frolik – Jankowski – Rieder
Giordano – Brodie
Hanifin – Hamonic
Kylington – Andersson
David Rittich again starts for the Flames, coming off his second career shutout on Saturday night. He’s backed up by Cam Talbot. The healthy scratches tonight are Michael Stone and Austin Czarnik.
A couple minor tweaks for the Flames: Sam Bennett is on the second unit power play (and the second line at even strength), Andrew Mangiapane takes a spot on the third line and Michael Frolik drops down to the fourth line. The approach seems to be to find a balance between offensive oomph and speed on the wings and potentially make the team a bit tougher to line match against. We’ll see if Bill Peters makes any more adjustments mid-game, as he did against Vancouver on Saturday.
The Kings
Projected lines, via Daily Faceoff:
Iafallo – Kopitar – Brown
Kovalchuk – Kempe – Carter
Wagner – Lizotte – Toffoli
Clifford – Amadio – Lewis
Bjornfot – Doughty
Martinez – Roy
Hutton – Walker
Jack Campbell looks to be the starter, backed up by Jonathan Quick. The projected extras are Kurtis MacDermid, Joakim Ryan and Carl Grundstrom.
The Kings haven’t played since Saturday, when they lost 6-5 to the Oilers up in Edmonton. Their defensive play was obviously lacking, and they’ll hope to play with a bit more poise and structure against the Flames.
The Numbers
| Flames | Kings | |
| Wins | 1 | 0 |
| Points | 2 | 0 |
| Adjusted Corsi | 52.2% | 54.5% |
| Power Play | 25.0% | 20.0% |
| Penalty Kill | 83.3% | 60.0% |
Injury Report
The Flames are without D Juuso Valimaki (ACL surgery).
The Kings are missing D Derek Forbort (back).
When Last We Met
The Flames took three of their four meetings with the Kings last season. Their last contest was a 7-2 trouncing at Staples Center back on Apr. 1.
Know Thy Enemy
Here are some key Twitter peeps to follow for tonight’s opener:
