(Baby) Flames vs. (Baby) Oilers Preview: Igniting the rivalry

Last night, the Flames prospects won in a thrilling 6-4 come behind victory, where the goals were frequent and defence didn’t matter. Tonight, they face the Oilers prospects, and they’ll be playing without one of their best players from the previous game. Markus Granlund, who was a factor all night and was involved in four of the six Flames goals, gets the night off as several camp invites get the chance to show their stuff.

Thoughts on the projected lineup:

• Gaudreau and Arnold aren’t going to play together their entire lives. Just because they had some good college years together doesn’t mean it’s going to work out at the NHL level. Gaudreau is a better player, period, so he deserves the chance to play with someone like Bennett, and it should be a lot of fun to watch.
• With Granlund gone, Ferland and Jooris get split up as well. Ferland should provide more competent size on Gaudreau’s opposite wing, while Jooris gets the chance to play with another hard worker, Padakin, and a speedy, skilled player in Klimchuk. Who knows, maybe Klimchuk can fill in the Granlund role and turn that line into a really productive one.
• Eric Roy got injured and Patrick Sieloff just played his first game in a year, so they sit for two of the invitees. Fram was one of the WHL’s top offensive defencemen last season, so he should be interesting to watch.
• 34th overall is a pretty high spot to be drafted. Time to see what McDonald has that impressed the Flames brass so much to take him there, because statistically, he’s really only had one good tournament.
• <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oilers?src=hash”>#Oilers</a> Rookies lineup tonight vs. Calgary at <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/YoungStars?src=hash”>#YoungStars</a>. <a href=”http://t.co/YCkmtii3xE”>pic.twitter.com/YCkmtii3xE</a></p>&mdash; Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) <a href=”https://twitter.com/EdmontonOilers/status/510856537708167168″>September 13, 2014</a></blockquote><script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
  No big names like Leon Draisaitl or Darnell Nurse for the Oilers, but then again, the Flames aren’t dressing Granlund, so maybe that makes it a fair fight.

by Ari Yanover