Connect with us

Calgary Flames

Flames at Wild Game Thread: One (Or Seven) For the Road

Published

on


Next Game

Calgary Flames
@ Minnesota Wild

Sunday, Apr 21, 2013, 4:00 PM MT
Xcel Energy Center

The Enemy: Hockey Wilderness

Complete Coverage >



The Flames are in Minnesota today, kicking off a four game road trip to finish off the shortened 2012-13 season.

And Jay Feaster is making good on his promise that the Flames' roster will be composed of mostly prospects and rookie NHLers before the Flames call it quits on April 26th.

This morning, the parent club called up seven players from the Abbotsford Heat, including Mark Cundari, Akim Aliu, Paul Byron, Blair Jones, Carter Bancks, Ben Street and Leland Irving, but not all will play tonight.

After signing a one-year, one-way extension with the Flames, Joey MacDonald will be the starter tonight despite the fact that he was not feeling 100% on the trip to Minnesota, according to Bob Hartley. I suppose they called Irving up in case MacDonald couldn’t go tonight but now I’m not sure what they’re going to do with him, unless Kipper sits out the remaining four games.

MacDonald’s re-signing certainly throws an interesting wrench into things in terms of the Flames’ goaltending depth. The club recently signed Reto Berra, the goalie acquired in the Jay Bouwmeester trade, and is currently waiting to sign Karri Ramo, which now cannot be done until free agency begins on July 5th.

Anyway, here are the Flames' probable lines and pairings for today straight from the horse's mouth:

Baertschi-Backlund-Cammalleri

Reinhart-Horak-Hudler

Byron-Street-Stempniak

Jackman-Stajan-Hanowski

Hanowski will play in his home state tonight after being a scratch in Friday’s game and Steve Begin and Curtis Glencross, who sustained a knee injury courtesy of Ben Lovejoy, will not play.

Giordano-Sarich

Brodie-Cundari

Butler-Carson

MacDonald

Dennis Wideman will sit this one out with a finger injury which means the Flames’ first pairing is looking interesting, to say the least. I’ll be watching the Brodie-Cundari pairing, if it stays that way, as it could be a good glimpse into the future of the club’s blueline.

Wild:

Coyle-Koivu-Parise

Pominville-Brodziak-Bouchard

Zucker-Cullen-Setoguchi

Clutterbuck-Mitchell-Granlund

Brodin-Suter

Clark-Spurgeon

Gilbert-Stoner

Backstrom

Go Flames.

by Hayley Mutch