Projected Lines: CGY vs STL

Projected Lines

Calgary Flames versus St. Louis Blues

Scotiabank Saddledome

Calgary, Alberta

The Flames have points in three of four, but all four of those have ended in a loss of some kind. They’ll try to find the win column tonight against the Blues!

We start at morning skate, where the starter’s net remained unchanged from the previous two games.

Per Salim Valji of TSN:

While improving his play despite some soft goals, Markstrom lost his last two starts in shootouts andhasn’t seen any run support. He is making his third straight start. He brings an 8-74 record into tonight’s contest with an .897 SV% and a 2.82 Goals Against Average.

The Blues are averaging 2.91 goals per game, which might bode well for the netminder’s chances.

Chris Tanev did not skate this morning and expected to be unavailable for the second straight game dealing with a head injury. Connor Mackey has been on the roster in his stead.

Milan Lucic looks to return to fourth line action tonight after three healthy scratches in a row, and will likely sub in for Brett Ritchie.

Lineup Looks:

• After going back to being healthy scratched and flip-flopping press box spots with Brett Ritchie, Kevin Rooney cleared waivers and has been officially designated to the Wranglers as of December 9th.
• Radim Zohorna and Matthew Phillips remain called up from the Wranglers, but only Zohorna is in tonight. They were technically sent down on December 5th as a paper transaction to extend their waiver exemption period.
• Dennis Gilbert was sent back down to the Wranglers as of November 27th.
• Defender Oliver Kylington remains away on personal leave.
• D-Man Michael Stone is officially back from Injured Reserve since November 26th against Carolina, and he has skated on the third pairing with Nikita Zadorov since, but will work alongside Mackey tonight.
• Milan Lucic will come back in and Brett Ritchie heads up for some popcorn, alongside healthy scratch Nick DeSimone. Matthew Phillips will join them in the press box after seeing two games of action since his callup.
• In the forward groupings, Adam Ruzicka looks to remain swapped off the top line but has been finding his offense again. Over the prior 10 games he has two goals and nine points.
• Jonathan Huberdeau will stay in the top six but will drop town and swap with Dillon Dube. Huberdeau is hopefully rounding into form after tacking on nine points over his last ten games.

Projections:

Barring any major changes when lineups are submitted, they are projected as follows:

FORWARD 1: Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli

FORWARD 2: Huberdeau-Kadri-Mangiapane

FORWARD 3: Ruzicka-Backlund-Coleman

FORWARD 4: Luci-Zohorna-Lewis

D1: Hanifin-Andersson

D2: Zadorov-Weegar

D3: Mackey-Stone

GOALTENDERS: Markstrom (starter), Vladar (backup)