Calgary has its own holes. Captain Mikael Backlund is listed out after taking a hit along the boards from Carolina's William Carrier, and Ben Jones got the call from the AHL Wranglers to cover the middle. Jonathan Huberdeau is skating with the team but isn't close to returning from his hip injury, and Samuel Honzek is on IR. That's a thin forward group for a team that has to score enough to beat a Toronto lineup that just dropped 7.
The Flames are 3-6-0 as of Sunday, and the preseason talk had them tanking for lottery balls. Devin Cooley isn't buying it. He stopped 36 shots across back-to-back home wins over Carolina, the defending champs, and Minnesota, a .958 save percentage, and said afterward that Calgary had "gone head-to-head with two of the top teams." The power play has woken up too: 4-for-10 over a 4-game stretch after starting 2-for-13, with Joel Farabee and Aydar Suniev both scoring with the man advantage against the Wild.
Calgary still has a home game against Detroit before this one, so the streak, the record and Backlund's status could all look different by Monday. Whatever happens there, the setup holds. Calgary's fixed power play and a hot goalie go up against a Leafs team running on depth scoring and a patched-together defense. If Cooley keeps stopping everything and the special teams keep converting, the Flames can drag this into the low-scoring game they've been winning. If Toronto's forwards get Calgary's goalie scrambling the way they did Jarry, it gets out of hand fast.
Puck drops at 6:30 PM MT at the Scotiabank Saddledome. It's the second stop on Toronto's western swing, and the first real test of whether the Edmonton result holds up.