Colorado has slowly replaced the Predators as the Calgary's uber-nemesis. They beat the Flames up down the stretch last year to make the sprint for the final play-off spot interesting, and they've won 3 straight over us to start this season. Calgary SHOULD have won two of those three games...unfortunately "almosts" don't count for much.
The good news is Sakic (the primary engineer behind the Flames misfortunes) and the Avs are slumping. Burnaby Joe has one goal in his last 13 games. Colorado has scored one goal and given up 10 in their last two games (6-0 L to Dallas, 4-1 L to Minnesota). In addition, they're a pretty bad road team (2-6-1).
The bad news is, the Flames have been pretty bad themselves recently. Also, Mark Smith will be in for the Linden-concussed Marcus Nilson tonight, making the 4th line an even bigger bag of suck than it was to begin with. Who wants to bet both Smith and Godard see > 5 minutes of ice this evening?
Matt thinks recently recalled Curtis McElhinney will be in net tonight, but Im a "I'll believe it when I see it" kinda guy on that front. I get the feeling Keenan's going to play Kipper until he either regains his form on a consistent basis or drops dead from exhaustion...
Prediction - Iginla hasn't scored for awhile so I think tonight is his night to get a couple. Conversely I assume Sakic will continue to slump, because that sure would be nice. Calgary 3, Colorado 1. Iggy (2) and Langkow for the Flames. Guite for the Avs.
