Calgary Flames Daily: Jaromir Jagr back in lineup, Hamonic’s new project

The Calgary Flames will need to bounce back tonight vs. the Nashville Predators. We’ll also be taking a look at Travis Hamonic’s new project.

The Calgary Flames need to bounce back tonight and need all the wins they can get before 2017 ends. They’re on the outside looking in right now with 35 points in 32 games. A win tonight against the top team in the Western Conference will help them out quite a bit.

This will be the second meeting between the two teams. The Flames won the first meeting in a shootout. Since then, the Nashville Predators have gone 16-4-2. So that’s not intimidating at all. The Flames will need to watch their special teams a lot tonight. In the last meeting, they were 0/4 with the man-advantage and the Preds went 2/3 on their PP.

The Flames have been getting quite better at their penalty killing. But something that’s been lacking in their last few games is their powerplay. They had a 5-on-3 powerplay the other night against the San Jose Sharks and they couldn’t even get clean zone entries. They dominated the other game vs. the Minnesota Wild in the first period, but when they got a powerplay, for some reason they just fell apart. If they don’t keep their special teams in check tonight, there’s no way they’ll walk away with two points.

Related Story: Flames lose in shootout vs. Minnesota Wild

Via Calgary Flames:

“The focus today,” said Gulutzan, following Friday’s workout, “was the powerplay. If you look at our last five games, in our 5-on-5 chances we’ve created 64 and given up 45.“So we’re in a good spot there.“But chances on the powerplay were 14-7. That’s not good enough. Look at (Thursday’s) game, both teams scored two 5-on-5 goals and they had the extra with a powerplay goal.“And we had a 5-on-3 that game. Our specialty teams right now aren’t helping us get points.”“We’ve obviously been thrown off a little bit by Versteeg’s injury,” acknowledged Gulutzan, “but that’s no excuse. Two or three games with that, but now we’ve got to find a new chemistry with guys and that’s what we worked on today, extensively.“Getting the same kind of looks we were getting before.”

Kris Versteeg was that fifth man on the first PP unit and with him being out for the next few months, the Flames haven’t quite known what to do. They’ve shuffled the lines a little bit, but they haven’t been successful. Let’s hope tonight they can fix that with the return of Jaromir Jagr since I like to think of him as a good luck charm. He will, however, be starting on the fourth line alongside Matt Stajan and Troy Brouwer since that third line has been performing well with Garnet Hathaway on the wing.

Calgary Flames

On to other news, Travis Hamonic‘s new initiative has finally launched. He continues to prove to be a good guy. First, he has his D-partner program, where he brings children who have lost one or both of their parents and brings them to the game and hangs out with them for a little bit. And he does that all out of his own pocket.

Now, he and his wife have launched their new initiative called The Northern Project. They’ll bring Indigenous children and their families from the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, and give them five-star treatment all weekend as they come down to the ‘Dome for the game and get to meet and talk with Travis Hamonic.

Via Calgary Flames:

“My wife Stephanie and I are extremely excited to host Indigenous children and their families who may otherwise not have the opportunity to see an NHL game,” said Travis Hamonic. “Being Métis myself, I hold my roots very close to my heart and hope this initiative provides the children and their families with a bit of light and hope for their future.”

The first recipients have arrived today and are already at the ‘Dome. The family comes from Naujaat, Nunavut where 14-year-old MacLeod, 13-year-old Palak, and their father Emmanuel will get to watch their first ever NHL game live.

Is anybody else crying or is that just me?

Hockey Tweet of the day

Some links surrounding the Flames

Flames defence corps questioned (Calgary Sun).

5 Things – Flames vs. Predators (Calgary Flames).

Hamonic introduces new initiative (Calgary Flames).

Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL

NHL at 100: Humble beginnings to billion-dollar business (CBC Sports).

Fisher enjoys return in snowy Senators Alumni Classic (NHL.com).

Three teams that could be active before the NHL’s holiday roster freeze (Sportsnet).

4 things we learned in the NHL: Leafs are lost without Matthews (Sportsnet).

Next: Has Glen Gulutzan lost the ear of the team?

That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!