Well, I am off to a late start on Sunday after I got sucked into watching a bunch of seasons of Dexter last night, staying up until the wee hours after continually pressing the “play next episode” button. With less than 5 hours until the puck drops….I better get to work.
The Winnipeg Jets will be playing their 51st game of the regular season today at the Canada Life Centre when the Calgary Flames visit the city. Both franchises are on winning streaks, since the Jets have come out victorious in their previous two contests and the Flames haven’t dropped a match since beating Winnipeg 3-1 on Jan 18th (3 game streak).
When the puck drops shortly after 5 pm Central, the fans at the CLC will get to witness a clash between the #2 ranked Jets and #15 ranked Flames. The True Northers (33-14-3) have been very good in their home arena with a 19-5-3 record, while Calgary (24-16-7) is less effective on the road with a 9-10-4 record. Winnipeg is still holding on to the top spot for goal scoring in the NHL, while Calgary is knotted for the 3rd worst offensive output in the league.
With neither franchise scheduling a pre-game skate today, the starting lineups are pretty much a blindfolded shot at a dart board, but here is how PuckPedia is predicting things:


The Calgary Flames ended up winning 5-4 on Saturday in a fairly rough affair against the Minnesota Wild…and since goalie Dustin Wolf was in between the pipes for that match, I would expect our squad to face Dan Vladar this evening. The visitors will be without injured forwards Connor Zary & Anthony Mantha, but the team has been winning without their contributions in the past week. It is also being reported that top pairing defenseman Kevin Bahl will not be able to go after being on the wrong side of a bodycheck in their match against the Wild.
The Winnipeg Jets have a question mark with defenseman Josh Morrissey dealing with an illness that kept him away from yesterday’s practice. Whether he will be good to go by the time the Canadian national anthem is sung is unknown, so Ville Heinola & Colin Miller may find themselves drawing back into the starting lineup. Of course, the Jets will be without their captain tonight, as Adam Lowry continues to work his way back from a recent injury. Another possible line change could occur if the Jets’ coaching staff opts to go with backup Eric Comrie for today’s game. Since Winnipeg’s next 4 games are against teams playing well right now (MTL, BOS, WSH, & CAR), it might not be a bad choice.
Okay….time for the data. Lets check out how the two Canadian franchises compare based on their season’s stats and ESPN’s look at the masked men.


Alright….now that we have all the information required, who is going to pull out the 2 points from Sunday’s Canadian Clash? If Eric Comrie does get the start, can the Jets actually provide him with sufficient goals to allow the tender to end his long winless streak? Can Cole Perfetti & Nikolaj Ehlers build on their strong performance against Utah? Or will the Flames douse the Jets’ winning streak?
Please share your thoughts in the comment section below and hopefully I left enough time for someone like SaskatoonJet or Padre to submit their game predictions. Of course, any other AIH member is welcome to throw their hats in the ring by posting their own. I can’t speak for everyone, but I really enjoy cheering during the game for the prognostications to come true…so your efforts don’t go unnoticed. For my part, I was going to give the BOJA Boost to Dylan Samberg today….but since the defenseman consistently plays a strong defensive game, I thought I would try to uplift Mark Scheifele, who has been struggling with something (injury, illness, lack of drive, etc) and has only managed 1 assist in the past 4 contests.
Enjoy the sunny weather in Manitoba (hopefully it is shining where ever you are if you are one of our many out of province fans)!!
Go Winnipeg!!!!!