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Arizona Coyotes vs Calgary Flames: Coyotes look for a comeback

By Catherine Silverman

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Arizona Coyotes vs Calgary Flames

At the start of the 2014-2015 season, the guys over at Flame For Thought had each of the Fansided NHL Pacific Division editors predict where their teams would be at the end of the season.

The Flames were kind enough to put the Arizona Coyotes in dead last in the Pacific… but that was certainly more accurate than the dead-last prediction we gave Calgary. The Flames are 14-8-2 on the season, good for third in the division and tenth in the league.

Luckily for the Coyotes, Calgary is letting Jonas Hiller sit this one out. Too bad Karri Ramo is 3-0-0 in his last three games…

Details for Saturday night’s game:

DATE: Saturday, November 29th
TIME: 7:00p.m. PST
LOCATION: Glendale, Arizona
ARENA: Gila River Arena
TV INFO: Fox Sports AZ, CBC

Keys to Victory:

Hooray, CBC is broadcasting the game! Canadians are getting ALL the Arizona exposure this season.

Anyways.

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Looking back at the Blackhawks' trades involving Andrew Ladd /

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    • The Flames are off to an extremely hot start this season, but the Coyotes are a team known for playing to their opponents — a bad thing when your opponent is underperforming, but usually a very good thing when your opponent looks good.

    The Coyotes are (it seems) only a few games away from getting Brandon Gormley back on the ice, and hopefully the thought of another skater competing for a starting roster spot will motivate the blue line to finish all sixty minutes of the game. Michael Stone has had almost a full week off to let that face issue heal, and guys like Keith Yandle — who have been ‘nicked up’ but still skate top ice minutes — have had some time to rest.

    In order for the Coyotes to win, though, they can’t come into this game under the assumption that the Flames spent all week eating turkey. We saw a few teams look sluggish last night; that’s the last thing Arizona needs to be.

    Brendan Shinnimin has brought his four goals, ten assists, and absolutely fantastic name to the NHL; he was recalled for Thanksgiving, replacing Lucas Lessio as the temporary Portland call-up. We can all safely assume that Tobias Rieder has earned himself a permanent spot in the line-up — although Dave Tippett doesn’t seem satisfied with any of the top three line combinations he’s tried, we have seen some consistency in a Rieder-Doan pairing on either side of the three centers they’ve each played with. If Rieder continues to lead the team in possession — and if he and Michael Stone can continue to dominate defensively on the ice together — this could be the key to a Coyotes victory that we never saw coming.

    Devan Dubnyk is getting his seventh start of the season (PRAISE BE HIS TALL LANKY FRAME), so we’ll need to see a player motivated to keep a monstrous 5-0-1 record alive. This is the battle of the backups in net tonight — and the Coyotes absolutely need to win it.

    Speaking of centers, and Michael Stone — congratulations to Joe Vitale for leading all NHL forwards in blocked shots, and congratulations to Stone for leading the same stats for all league defensemen. Keep that up, particularly against the slightly smaller Calgary team, and this could be a nice win.

    Line Combinations:

    Forwards:
    Lauri Korpikoski – Antoine Vermette – Mikkel Boedker
    Tobias Rieder – Martin Hanzal – Shane Doan
    Brendan Shinnimin – Sam Gagner – Martin Erat
    Brandon McMillan – Joe Vitale – B.J. Crombeen
    Extra Skaters: Kyle Chipchura, Rob Klinkhammer. David Moss still listed on injured reserve.

    Defense:
    Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Zbynek Michalek
    Chris Summers – Michael Stone
    Keith Yandle – Connor Murphy
    Extra Skater: David Schlemko. Brandon Gormley still listed on injured reserve. 

    Predictions:

    The Flames took an early lead in the last game, with the Coyotes forced to play catch-up twice before ultimately falling behind by two goals that they could not recover from. Arizona has been improving their GAA in the first period, though, and it’s always easier to maintain a lead than it is to catch up. If the Coyotes are able to remember this and stop playing down to their opponents (which allows late-game comebacks and subsequent losses for the Desert Dogs), they might be able to take home a win in this one. They know they need to win; hopefully, they can actually do it.

    3. 112. 5. 121. Final

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