Two desperate teams are looking to break their losing ways in the battle of Alberta tonight. Edmonton, after starting out strong, has suffered 4 losses in a row; the most recent a 4-3 OTL to the Coyotes. Calgary, on the other hand, has only won twice in it's first 7 starts, with one of those victories coming against Edmonton last Saturday (3-0). Both teams will want to use the emotion produced by the long-standing rivalry as motivation to put their best foot forward. For their part, the Flames have failed to put together their "A" game thus far this season - recently they have managed to improve their penalty killing and defensive zone coverage, but have still struggled mightily to produce offensively, particularly on the powerplay. Conversely, Edmonton is suffering through injury woes - the Oilers have been without both Ryan Smyth and Shawn Horcoff, who represent the two top forwards on a team already somewhat thin on offensive talent in the first place. The injury bug has also recently bitten the Flames, who lost their second line center Matthew Lombardi to a sprained ankle last game against Phoenix.
As a result, the forward units for both teams will be slightly less than the "ideal". Calgary's new rumored lines for tonight look like this:
Amonte-Reinprecht-Iginla
Simon-Langkow-Kobasew
Nilson-Yelle-McCarty
Weimer-Ritchie-Donovan
Speed has been spread out across the 4 forward units (with the notable exception of Simon on the 2nd line). Reinprecht has shown brief flashes of his puck-handling and play-making abilities this year while playing with Lombardi and Kobasew. Hopefully his insertion onto the #1 line can help jumpstart Iginla, who only has 4 points in 7 games so far. If you're watching the game, keep an eye on the 3rd unit, centered by Stephane Yelle. They have impressed me so far with decent forechecking and offensive zone pressure. In addition, Yelle leads the team with a +5 rating, despite being on a a line that doesn't score very often. I also expect Kiprusoff to start again in net, although Sauve should be getting his first start of the season very soon.
What Calgary has to do to win -
#1) I'll put this in capital letters - SCORE ON THE POWERPLAY (subtitle: "why we lost against Phoenix"). More than once would be nice too. The Flames scored a PP marker against Edmonton last time...and they won. How? A rebound, because a shot from the point actually hit the net. Calgary needs to 1.) gets shots through traffic 2.) hit the net and make the goalie make a save 3.) get bodies in front for delfections and rebounds. In addition, I've noticed Calgary has frequently had trouble penetrating the zone and establishing position during the PP in the past...typically resulting in nearly half of the man-advantage beeing whittled away, which leaves prescious little time to work with. Here's hoping that the PP unit(s) start clicking tonight.
#2) Continue to build on defensive improvement. After getting lit-up by Minnesota, Detroit and Colorado, Calgary has allowed an average of 1.66 goals against over the last 3 games, one of which was an empty-net goal. This has been due to better defensive zone presence as well as the re-emergence of Kiprusoff as an elite goaltender. Siginificantly, Edmonton will be without Smyth and Horcoff again tonight, hopefully making the Flame's defenders jobs a little easier. Overall, though, as long as the trend over the last few games continues, the Flames will be fine in this area.
#3) Exploit Edmonton's defense. While the Oilers have one of the best d-men in the game (Pronger) as well dependable Stalwarts in Staios and Smith, they also have some definite liabilities in Cory Cross, Ulanov and Bergeron. Ulanov and Cross are big bodies that are prone to error. Cross has seemed particularly bad this year so far (see: Iginla's goal against the Oil last game). Bergeron, while fast, agile and an offensive threat, sometimes makes questionable defensive zone decisions. While Mactavish will look to match up Iginla with Peca and Pronger, Calgary should have enough speed in their other lines (Langkow, Kobasew, Donovan, Ritchie) to generate quality chances.
This is a big game for both teams. Edmonton will not want to drop 5 games in a row. Calgary must begin to assert itself as a contender in the West before they start plummeting periously out of the picture. Whoever wins, I personally expect this to be an exciting and hard fought contest...
