The Calgary Flames face the Winnipeg Jets beginning on Saturday in a qualifying round match-up. The Jets have the perceived edge in goal while the Flames have an advantage on the blueline. How do their forward groups match up?
The Flames
Players in Bubble:
Johnny Gaudreau (26 years old; 464 NHL games, 445 NHL points) – Sean Monahan (25; 541, 411) – Lindholm (25; 525, 320)
Andrew Mangiapane (24; 122, 45) – Mikael Backlund (31; 690, 365) – Matthew Tkachuk (22; 293, 235)
Milan Lucic (32; 958, 521) – Sam Bennett (24; 364, 128) – Dillon Dube (22; 70, 21)
Zac Rinaldo (30; 370, 42) – Derek Ryan (33; 302, 136) – Tobias Rieder (27; 434, 138)
Alan Quine (27; 106, 28) – Mark Jankowski (25; 208, 64) – Austin Czarnik (27; 121, 38)
Byron Froese (29; 110, 16) – Buddy Robinson (28; 12, 3)
Here’s a snapshot of Flames forward usage in 2019-20:
The Flames top line is well-established, and the addition of Elias Lindholm last season means that while they do get oodles of offensive zone starts they end up facing fairly tough opposition – something that fed into Bill Peters’ “strength against strength” line-matching preference that is shared by Geoff Ward.