Preview & Lines: Calgary Flames @ San Jose Sharks 4/8/17 (82/82)

After six months, we’re finally here at Game 82 of the Calgary Flames 2016-17 regular season. It seemed very unlikely at points during the season, but there will be more Flames games after today!

The Flames are rounding out their California road trip with a date against the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center, with puck drop at 8:00 MT.

With both teams pretty much set for playoffs, there will be a lot of resting players on both sides. The Flames are 3-1 against the Sharks this season and the teams split the two previous matchups in San Jose.

Last time out the Flames took down the Kings 4-1 with Jon Gillies getting the win in his NHL debut. Gillies has since been returned to Stockton while David Rittich has replaced him and could see action tonight.

The Flames are looking to gain some momentum going into the postseason as they’ve been an average 5-5 in their last ten games. Meanwhile the Sharks who had a healthy lead in the Pacific this season has completely fallen off to third in the division. San Jose has only three wins in their last 12 games.

We could possibly see two Flames NHL debuts today with Rasmus Andersson getting into the lineup for Calgary. It sounds like Elliott will start but we could see Rittich make an appearance at some point during the game.

It’s anticipated the Mikael Backlund, Kris Versteeg, Mark Giordano, and Deryk Engelland will all come out of the lineup for the Flames today.

Projected Lineup

Forwards

Johnny Gaudreau – Sean Monahan – Micheal Ferland

Matthew Tkachuk – Curtis Lazar – Michael Frolik

Freddie Hamilton – Sam Bennett – Alex Chiasson

Lance Bouma – Matt Stajan – Troy Brouwer

Defence

Matt Bartkowski – Dougie Hamilton

T.J. Brodie – Michael Stone

Rasmus Andersson – Dennis Wideman

Goalie

Brian Elliott (Starting)

David Rittich

We’ll see you tonight for our gamethread as the Flames look to close out the season with a victory over the Sharks.

by Michael MacGillivray