Columbus is in town tonight. I dont have much to say, except for these are the teams the Flames need to beat during this stretch drive: a lesser club who sold at the deadline and is playing out the stretch.
I was informed in the comments section below that Conroy has mysteriously recovered from his mysterious knee ailment and will in fact be in the line-up tonight. Tanguay is also expected to return after missing 3 games and Cory Sarich has ditched the face shield (although it's an open question whether he's actually going to dress or not).
Hail, hail - the gang's all here.
The flu has likely run it's course and one can reasonably expect the Flames are over that nasty bout of "the posts" that also afflicted them recently. The karmic bounces that delivered them wins in Dallas, San Jose and Minnesota previously have hopefully been paid back. In spades.
However, a win is anything but guaranteed this evening. The BJ's don't completely suck *rimshot*. Rich Nash continues to blossom into a superstar while Nicholai Zherdev has taken a few steps forward after his dreadful season from last year. Mike Peca is a toothy little puke that only scores with every lunar eclipse, but he can still get the job done in the defensive end of the ice. Pascal Leclaire is having a hell of break-out year as well, though one wonders to what degree Hitchcock's defensive systems can take credit for that.
Weaknesses? not much scoring depth beyond the first line, lots of youngsters in the line-up and a pretty unimpressive defense corps. If the Flames can minimize the damage done by Nash and co and take advantage of the lesser lights in the bottom 6 and on the back-end, they should win this one.
Prediction - Flames 5, Columbus 2. Iginla, HUSELIUS, LOMBARDI, Langkow and Phaneuf for Calgary. Nash, Malholtra for the BJs.
Go Flames.
