The Calgary Flames will be ending their four-game road trip with a visit to the City of Brotherly Love when they take on the Flyers (6-4-1).
Philadelphia is one of the worst offences in the league: Dead-last in total shots, fourth-last in goals scored, second-last in scoring chances produced, second-last in high-danger scoring chances produced (all in even-strength situations).
Calgary needs that break considering they have given up the sixth-most goals in even-strength hockey in the league.
Furthermore, Devin Cooley is in net for the Flames in back-to-back games for the first time ever in his career and even though he is looking for his first win, in four appearances he has logged in a save percentage of 0.933.
Philadelphia’s power play isn’t looking too hot either as they are ranked 19th in the league, and their shots on goal in the man-advantage is ranked fifth-last.
Just like Nashville in the last game, they’ll be looking to draw as many penalties from a Calgary team that has been short-handed the second-longest in the league (81:57) to get as many scoring chances as possible on the man-advantage.
For Calgary, it’s the other side of the ice that they need to be worried about: Philly is ranked second-last in total shots given up, third-last in shots on goal given up, fourth-last in goals given up, third-last in scoring-chances given up, second-last in high-danger scoring chances given up (all in even-strength situations)
Obviously that does not bode well for Calgary who are ranked an abysmal 31st and 15th in goals scored and scoring chances produced respectively in even-strength hockey despite their time on the ice ranking 11th in that situation.
And their power play is ranked fifth-worst in the league, going 7-for-50.
It doesn’t help either that Philadelphia’s penalty-kill is the second-best in the league.
Philly’s goalie is expected to be Aleksei Kolosov. He has only played one period of NHL hockey when he was put in the third period in the Flyers’ last game against the Leafs where he was a perfect seven saves off seven shots. Last season, he compiled a save percentage of 0.867 in 17 games.
The Flames will have to expect Cooley to play well against an offensively weak team.
Of course, not committing penalties helps.
But Calgary’s offence itself will have to score too. You can’t win on zero goals (duh). It will be interesting to see how they try this time against a a strong defensive team.
Hockey News