Calgary Flames Daily: Battling the Blues, struggling powerplay
The Calgary Flames head back in action tonight vs. the St. Louis Blues. Their struggling powerplay has seen some different combos in practice.
The Calgary Flames had two days off before returning to action tonight vs. the St. Louis Blues. Let’s hope the Blues players are all started by all this snow and don’t play up their capabilities. These two teams will be playing their third and final matchup of the season. They each have one win, so this will be the deciding factor for who wins the season series. But this struggling powerplay Flames team will be going up against a strong penalty-killing Blues team.
In the month of December, the Flames are just 8.8% on the PP with only three goals on 34 opportunities. They finally scored a powerplay goal in their last game vs. the Vancouver Canucks after going five games without a PP goal and 23 PP opportunities with no goals. In the game against the Canucks, they finally got one on their fifth PP of the night.
This will be going up against a strong PK team. The Blues are 93.1% on the PK in the month of December, allowing just two goals against this month. They’ll be coming off a 4-0 shutout loss vs. the Winnipeg Jets and they’ll be hungry for aw in. This is the second time in a week that they’ve been shutout, as they were shutout vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning last week as well. With the injury to Jaden Schwartz, they’ve definitely been missing his presence.
Calgary Flames
The Flames are in a similar situation. With the absence of Kris Versteeg, they’ve been feeling it on the powerplay. But hopefully, with Jaromir Jagr back in the lineup, he’ll bring some life back in this group. But he was on that fourth line alongside Matt Stajan and Troy Brouwer. Not his ideal teammates, and probably one of the oldest fourth lines in the NHL.
Via Calgary Sun:
“We’re old?” said Brouwer with a chuckle. “We figured out the Sedins and Vanek have an older line than us so we can’t even say we’re the oldest line. But it’s funny. There’s lots of experience on our line, and we know how we want to play, and we get pucks down low to try and hold them. We were all good playmakers at one point — that old guy still is — but it’s fun to play that way.”
However, it was just announced five minutes ago that Curtis Lazar will be in the lineup. Not exactly sure who’s out yet, but if I had to bet on it, I’d probably say Matt Stajan. So the fourth line won’t be as old now.
But it may even be Jaromir Jagr out of the lineup because the universe likes to make me cry. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
EDIT: Jagr is out because Flames fans can’t have anything nice.
Let’s also remember that Sam Bennett got his first goal of the season in the last matchup between the Flames and the Blues and that Mark Jankowski got a two-goal game. Let’s hope this third line will be a force like they were last time.
Flames Tweet of the day
Some links surrounding the Flames
GameDay: Blues at Flames (Calgary Sun).
Fourth line brings levity to Flames (Calgary Sun).
Preview: Calgary Flames vs St. Louis Blues 12/20/17 (35/82): Calgary Can Take The Season Series (Matchsticks & Gasoline).
‘He is relentless’ (Calgary Flames).
Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL
New York Islanders moving back to Long Island (FanSided).
Four times the Hurricanes got in the way of NHL history (Sportsnet).
4 things we learned in the NHL: Sens’ Karlsson finding his groove (Sportsnet).
Maple Leafs celebrate 100th anniversary by defeating Hurricanes (NHL.com).
Next: Is Versteeg's absence why Gaudreau's hit a slump?
That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!