Calgary Flames at Boston Bruins game preview: The Johnny Gaudreau tour continues

What’s one thing the Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins have in common? Other than both teams currently being present in the city of Boston, both teams are also just barely holding on to a playoff spot. The Bruins have the slightly safer grip at the moment, but everything can go wrong in an instant for them; and that applies even more so to the Flames. So both teams would probably be happy to get at least to overtime tonight, much like what happened in their previous meeting this season. A meeting that ended up being a 4-3 overtime win for the Flames, as they overcame a 3-0 deficit, and TJ Brodie scored the greatest overtime winner ever. A repeat of that would be great.

Though of course, we’d be just fine with a repeat of the last game the Flames played, too. Not the part where they lost a 2-0 deficit and got outplayed in the third period – although those Sean Monahan and Mikael Backlund goals were very nice – but the two points. Overtime’s totally fine, especially with one Jiri Hudler out there. | Recap | Stats | Boxscore | Hey, Brodie had an assist on that goal. Brodie in overtime is looking pretty good:

What of the Bruins, you ask? Well, in the six games they’ve played since we last met, they have a 3-2-1 record. That overtime loss was to the Edmonton Oilers, which, who loses to the Edmonton Oilers? That’s a thing that can happen? So weird.

For whatever reason, this is the first time the Bruins are playing in five days. They were reasonably active at the trade deadline, although one of their newest forwards – former Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brett Connolly – is already going to miss six weeks thanks to an injury sustained in practice, so he very well may not make his Bruins debut until next season, which is kind of amazing. They got Max Talbot, though!

For more on the B's, head on over to Stanley Cup of Chowder.

Game time: 5:00 p.m. MT, the east remains garbage. Although this must be nice for you Atlantic Flames fans.

Channel: SNW

All-time record: It's 34-56-10 for the Flames, which is not particularly good. There's a -44 goal differential to go with that, which, yeesh! Good thing that has no indication for tonight's game.

Common threads: Let us never forget Matt Bartkowski’s tenure as a Flame. Dennis Wideman was once a Bruin, himself. Josh Jooris once attended a Bruins training camp, and Johnny Gaudreau played hockey for Boston College, a school located in the same general area as the Boston Bruins! Wow.

Approaching milestones: Six more games for Mason Raymond to hit 500, seven more for Kris Russell.

David Jones still needs another 10 goals to reach 100 on the career, while TJ Brodie needs just five more points for 100.

Michael Ferland and Emile Poirier are still looking for their first NHL goals, but Poirier did pick up his first point against the Philadelphia Flyers!

Scoreboard watching: There are a couple of games to watch out for tonight:

• Minnesota Wild at Washington Capitals: Perhaps Curtis Glencross can continue to help us out?
• Dallas Stars at Florida Panthers: Whatever the Panthers’ goaltending situation actually is right now, if whoever’s in net could stop all the pucks, that’d be great.
• Vancouver Canucks at Arizona Coyotes: … Anything’s possible, right?
• Montreal Canadiens at Los Angeles Kings: Come on Carey Price do you want a Vezina or not?

Current records and leaders

Possible starting lineups

Hooray for the Stajans, as Elliot Emerson Stajan has joined us in this world! Matt Stajan is expected to return to his team, but not yet to the game. Drew Shore now requires waivers to be sent down, so he probably won’t be going anywhere the rest of the year. This should be David Schlemko’s Flames debut. And now Bob Hartley is addicted to Karri Ramo, so it’s a battle of the Finns in net tonight.

by Ari Yanover