Game 15 Preview: Flames at Avalanche

The Avalanche continue their 4 game home stand Friday night against ex-Avs Shane O`Brien, David Jones, T.J. Galiardi return to Colorado with the Calgary Flames. This is the first of three meetings between the former division rivals, two of which will happen in the Pepsi Center. The Avalanche will look to respond to their second loss of the season and will likely make some adjustments in their own end after giving up a season-high six (6!!!) goals in Wednesday night's game. Meanwhile the Flames are in the second game of a back-to-back series and fly into Colorado after losing last night's game 3-2 to the St. Louis Blues. After a surprising start to their season, the Flames have come crashing back to earth, going 3-7 in their last 10 games and dropping below .500. They have allowed 57 goals against so far (29th in the NHL) and have a -12 goal differential (13th in the West).

Nick Holden will start his second game of the season, but this time he will be filling in at his natural position, defense, in place of Ryan Wilson, who left Wednesday's game in the second period with a back injury.

Projected Lines:

O'Reilly - Duchene SLAPFIGHT!!! - Parenteau
Landeskog - Stastny - McGinn
Mitchell - MacKinnon - Talbot
McLeod - Cliche - Bordeleau

Hejda - Johnson
Holden - Guenin
Benoit - Sarich

Giguere

Varlamov

Scratches: Tanguay (knee), Wilson (Back), Hunwick

The Bad Guys:

Bouma-Stajan-Jones

Cammalleri-Colborne-Galiardi

Jackman-Monahan-Hudler

Reinhart-Backlund-McGrattan

Butler-Brodie

Wideman-Russell

O'Brien-Billins

Ramo

Berra

- The Flames starting goalie is unconfirmed, but since Berra started last night in St. Louis, Karri Ramo will likely be in net.

- The Flames have been decimated by injuries, Mark Giordano (probably their best player) is out for 6-8 weeks with a broken ankle. Lee Stempniak is week-to-week with a broken foot and Curtis Glencross willl miss 4-6 weeks with a sprained knee ligament. Miraculously, on a team bitten by the injury bug, David Jones is healthy.

- Jiri Hudler is (somehow) tied with Matt Duchene with 17 points this season

- Jones (5) and O'Brien (2) have fewer points than Alex Tanguay (9) and Cory Sarich (3). Suck it Feaster

- Give Bob Hartley a lot of credit for this team's performance so far, it's ummm not a very deep group and he has them competing every night.

Game Time: 7:00 pm MT on ALT