Preview: Calgary Flames at Edmonton Oilers (9/20/19)

The Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers will meet for the first time in the preseason (third time if you count the rookie games) tonight when they do battle at Rogers Place in Edmonton. The Flames are coming off a 6-4 victory at home over the San Jose Sharks while Edmonton is coming off a 6-1 loss at home last night against the Vancouver Canucks. Calgary is sitting at 2-0-1 in the preseason while Edmonton is 1-2-0.

A narrative heading into this game were the players that switched clubs in the offseason, with Milan Lucic and Cam Talbot now in Calgary while James Neal and Mike Smith are now in Edmonton. Unfortunately those narratives will have to wait to be fulfilled until later as all four players will not be in the lineup tonight.

Calgary’s lineup tonight will look as follows:

Sam Bennett - Mikael Backlund - Michael Frolik

Andrew Mangiapane - Mark Jankowski - Elias Lindholm

Dillon Dube - Alan Quine - Devante Smith-Pelly

Ryan Lomberg - Glenn Gawdin - Zac Rinaldo

Noah Hanifin - Travis Hamonic

Oliver Kylington - Michael Stone

Brandon Davidson - Alexander Yelesin

David Rittich

Jon Gillies

Edmonton’s lineup will look as follows:

Joakim Nygard - Leon Draisaitl - Zack Kassian

Anton Burdasov - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Sam Gagner

Jujhar Khaira - Riley Sheahan - Josh Archibald

Markus Granlund - Gaetan Haas - Patrick Russell

Darnell Nurse - Adam Larsson

William Lagesson - Evan Bouchard

Brandon Manning - Ethan Bear

Mikko Koskinen

Shane Starrett

It sounds like David Rittich will get the first half of the game tonight before giving way to Jon Gillies who I’m kind of surprised will be seeing action for the second game in a row.

3 Flames to Watch

1. Andrew Mangiapane - He’ll be getting his first game action of the preseason after his “holdout” ended a few days ago. He’ll be slotting alongside Mark Jankowski and Elias Lindholm which should allow him to settle back into game action fairly easily.

2. Alan Quine - He’s firmly on the roster bubble right now but I’ve been impressed in the two games I’ve watched him play this season. He’s not really auditioning for much more than a 4th line/13th forward spot, but he has impressed after putting up 52 points in 41 games with Stockton last year.

3. David Rittich - He only faced four shots in his preseason debut so I’m looking forward to seeing how he does with a bit more rubber headed his direction tonight. He seems to be the unquestioned #1 at this point, so hopefully he can use tonight to start settling into a groove for the season.

Puck drops tonight at 7:00 PM from Rogers Place and game will be streamed from the Flames website along with their Facebook page.