After losses in each of their past three games, the message for the Flames tonight is pretty simple; just win. A win by the Anaheim Ducks last night bumped them into ninth place in the West, but they could take over possession of seventh place tonight with a win and a Dallas Stars loss.
The Avs really are in a pitiful state at the moment; they have just one win in their past twenty games and are another team with a long list of walking wounded, missing Kyle Cumiskey, Tomas Fleischmann, T.J. Galiardi, Peter Mueller, Kyle Quincey, and Milan Hejduk. The Flames are without centres David Moss and Brendan Morrison, and Ales Kotalik will play tonight after being called up from the minors yesterday--so we'll see what kind of difference, if any, he makes tonight.
As Mitch mentioned in his post earlier, this is absolutely a must win for the Flames. With the season winding down, their playoff hopes are on the line now more than ever. The Avs, a team that has been out of the running for some time now, will surely relish the role of spoiler, especially as they're coming into this one after having lost 4-2 to another division rival last night in a game against the Vancouver Canucks.
Enjoy the game everyone, and hope a newly motivated Kotasuck Kotalik pots a hat trick in the comments. He's part Irish, right? Go Flames.