Calgary Flames at Ottawa Senators [Game 52]

The free-falling Calgary Flames take to the nation’s capital as they take on the Ottawa Senators. The Flames failed to win again on Tuesday as they lost to the Montreal Canadiens and have lost nine straight. They’ll have to be better tonight.

The lines are being shaken up. Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan will play alongside Michael Frolik while Matthew Tkachuk and Micheal Backlund draw in with Alex Chiasson. The bottom two lines are still the same and that’s still ultimately a problem. On paper, mixing these two lines doesn’t do much and any result seems like it would probably be a surprise.

The defense will be exactly the same. Glen Gulutzan doesn’t have a lot of weapons here as he to factor in one of Jyrki Jokipakka or Dennis Wideman in the lineup. Ultimately the best option might be to put Brett Kulak with T.J. Brodie with Brodie on the right side, but a tandem of Deryk Engelland with Wideman sounds downright unusable.

Brian Elliott will start tonight as the Flames wheel of goalies spins once again. Neither Chad Johnson nor Elliott have been impressive lately and that’s bad news for a team that simply has too many plugs on the roster. He’ll need to be better tonight for them to have a chance.

by Les Mavus