Oilers at Flames Game Thread

After a fairly uneventful deadline day, the Flames hit the ice for the second half of a home and home against the Oilers with much the same team they had on Monday night following the Jay Bouwmeester trade.

Calgary’s lack of a top two defenceman was evident in Monday’s game, as the Oilers blew past the Flames 4-1 at Rexall Place and Miikka Kiprusoff got the hook for the second consecutive game.

The Oilers made a small deal today, trading a fourth round pick in this year’s draft to the Florida Panthers for long-time Nashville Predator Jerred Smithson. 35-year-old Smithson has two goals and five points in 35 games so far this season. Yesterday they also acquired defenceman Garrett Stafford from the Washington Capitals for forward Dayne Byers in an exchange of AHL journeymen.

So both teams are pretty much the same as the two that hit the ice two days ago. The Flames outshot the Oilers 34-20 in that game and lost 4-1 because of some shoddy defence and goaltending. Joey MacDonald stopped 13 of 14 shots after replacing Kiprusoff near the end of the first period, and he will get the start again tonight.

The Flames had their home winning streak snapped when they lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets last Friday, and if they play like they did on Monday night with a little help in net, they might just be able to re-start it again.

Lines and Pairings:

Flames:

Glencross-Stajan-Stempniak

Tanguay-Cammalleri-Cervenka

Hudler-Backlund-Horak

McGrattan-Begin-Jackman

Brodie-Giordano

Wideman-Sarich

Butler-Babchuk/Smith

MacDonald

Oilers:

Hall-Nugent-Hopkins-Eberle

Paajarvi-Gagner-Hemsky

Jones-Horcoff-Yakupov

Brown-Smyth-Petrell

Smid-Petry

N. Schultz-J.Schultz

Whitney-Potter

Dubnyk

Go Flames.

by Hayley Mutch