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The Calgary Flames (35-30-10, 5th Pacific), fresh off an official white flag waving mass player shut down, still have a job to do and a spoiler to play, and in that role they'll visit our San Jose Sharks (42-23-9, 2nd Pacific) this rainy afternoon. Calgary shut down a number of key players with injury in the last few days, including Kris Versteeg and Sean Monahan, while injured skaters Matthew Tkachuk and T.J. Brodie aren't likely to be far behind. With an eight point gap between them and the Colorado Avalanche in the West's second wild card spot, one wonders if the rainy conditions will affect the Flames' play seeing as they've thrown in all their towels.
Losers of their last four and outscored 20-6 in those games, the Flames' season has been effectively derailed. The renaissance of goaltender Mike Smith seems to have been short lived, as his performance has been dreadful since his return from injury: he hasn't put up a save percentage above .900 since a 13 March shut out of the Edmonton Oilers five games ago. Martin Jones, on the other end of the ice, is 11-3-1 in his last 15 to go along with a 2.14 goals against average and a .929 save percentage.
The Sharks are on the opposite end of pretty much every spectrum. Winners of six straight, including a dominant 2-1 over time win over the division leading Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night, the Sharks will try to put together their first seven game winning streak since April 2013. Sitting four points ahead of the Los Angeles Kings for second in the Pacific, a win today (coupled with a Kings loss to the Oilers, not likely) would open up a nigh insurmountable gap for post season home ice.
There is room for hope with this Sharks team right now, as they're playing like they could take on any one in the division comfortably. As for the Central, well, we'll worry about that when we get there.
Sharks Lines
Evander Kane -- Joe Pavelski -- Melker Karlsson
Tomas Hertl -- Logan Couture -- Mikkel Boedker
Timo Meier -- Chris Tierney -- Kevin Labanc
Barclay Goodrow -- Eric Fehr -- Jannik Hansen
Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun
Paul Martin -- Brent Burns
Brenden Dillon -- Dylan DeMelo
Martin Jones
Aaron Dell
Scratched: Joel Ward, Marcus Sorensen, Tim Heed
Injured: Joe Thornton (knee), Joonas Donskoi (upper body), Joakim Ryan (upper body)
Flames Lines
Johnny Gaudreau -- Sam Bennett -- Curtis Lazar
Michael Frolik -- Mikael Backlund -- Troy Brouwer
Micheal Ferland -- Mark Jankowski -- Chris Stewart
Nick Shore -- Matt Stajan -- Garnet Hathaway
Dougie Hamilton -- Mark Giordano
Michael Stone -- Travis Hamonic
Brett Kulak -- Rasmus Andersson
David Rittich
Mike Smith
Scratched: Tanner Glass, Matt Bartkowski
Injured: Sean Monahan (undisclosed), Kris Versteeg (lower body), Matthew Tkachuk (upper body), Marek Hrivik (upper body), TJ Brodie (upper body)
Where to watch
Broadcast: NBCSCA, SNW
Stream: NHL.tv / NHL App
Radio: 98.5 KFOX / NHL App / Sharks App