Game 26 Preview: Canucks vs Flames

From one faded rivalry to another. This one puts the shoe firmly on the other foot for the Flames.

As the Oilers are to the Flames, the Flames are to the Canucks – actually not that bad.

A brief rivalry existed for a brief moment in recent history with the Canucks but of the current era the Flames are not up to Nuck standards. In recent outings they have mailed it in and been roundly thumped for it.

An interesting move tonight is that Sutter looks like he is starting to manage the schedule.

Henrik Karlsson is the projected starter and in days of old it would have been the opposite. The back-up would have taken on the lowly Oilers and Kipper certainly would have started in past Canucks games. No longer.

Is Sutter throwing the game? I prefer the term managing the schedule. I will be interested to see how the Flames perform in front of the Calgary Tower because of that terrible habit of mailing it in, in front of the back-up.

Tonight Karlsson is thrown to the wolves in Blue. It will be interesting to see how he and the new and younger Flames D holds up against top offensive competition. (That wasn’t a dig at the Oilers offense – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins truly is the next emerging superstar in this writer’s opinion)

Mason Raymond is returning to the line-up for his first game of the season for the Canucks, exciting for them I guess.

The Key to the Flames win

Win or lose against the Canucks tonight – one can always take solace that everyone hates them for their team identity. They are who they are.

Projected Lines – Flames

Alex Tanguay – Roman Horak – Rene Bourque

Blake Comeau – Mikael Backlund – Lee Stempniak

Tom Kostopoulos – Matt Stajan – Tim Jackman

Jay Bouwmeester – Chris Butler

Scott Hannan – T.J. Brodie

Derek Smith – Joe Piskula

It just continues to weird me out that Roman Horak (the return from the Tim Erixon forced trade) is 2nd line C in Calgary at only the age of 20. Erixon meanwhile has been sent to the minors by the Rangers. Horak is not being sheltered that much as far as I can tell and he is not falling apart either. Clearly he is impressing Sutter enough to get the high line ranking.

Projected Lines – Canucks

David Booth – Ryan Kesler – Chris Higgins

Manny Malhotra – Cody Hodgson – Mason Raymond

Jannik Hansen – Maxim Lapierre – Dale Weise

Kevin Bieksa – Dan Hamhuis

Alexander Edler – Sami Salo

Keith Ballard – Aaron Rome

And Bobby Luo gets the start.

I love Luo jokes –

1. What time is it in Boston? 12 past luongo.

   thought the canucks were sponsored by lu lu lemon…turns out they were just talking about their goalie 😉

   Luongo must be pregnant, he just missed 5 periods.

2. BREAKING NEWS: Luongo tried to commit suicide last night, threw himself in front of a bus, fortunately it went right between his legs
3. Hey Roberto – why the Luongo face?
4. The reality that Luongo is actually a good goalie stat wise, just makes the wisecracks more poignant.

1. If by some far out and slim possibility the Flames actually manage to beat Luongo and contingently the Canucks tonight, look for Luo to need body guards when he is in Vancouver and until he starts winning games again. It is unlikely, but what a win this would be on an already – under siege by the fans – Luo.

by M Smith