Welcome back to another day of NHL Predictions. Each day, we will take a look at the games that are happening and give our predictions for each one. There is only one game on the slate for Saturday, May 15th, the Calgary Flames vs Vancouver Canucks.
NHL Predictions: Calgary Flames vs Vancouver Canucks
Head-to-Head: Flames 5 – 2 Canucks
Despite the Stanley Cup Playoffs starting last night, the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames face-off three more times before their respective season’s end. A midseason Covid-19 outbreak on the Canucks roster led to several of their games being pushed back. While both teams have missed the 2020-21 Stanley Cup Playoffs, they continue to fight for their season-ending positions in the rankings.
In their matchup last Thursday, the Flames came out on top with a 4-1 win. With goals from Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, Rasmus Andersson, and Andrew Mangiapane, the Flames outdistanced the Canucks in all aspects of the game.
Overall though, the Calgary Flames have had a pretty lacklustre season. The Flames are fairly well-rounded on paper, but their offence is a mess. They’re a bottom-10 shooting percentage team, and they have just 135 goals on the season. The Flames are filled with offensive talent, but they need to find a way to finish, the way they did against the Canucks on May 13th.
As for the Canucks, they have had a rough season. They currently sit at 28th in the league with a record of 22-28-3 and hold the last spot in the North Division. Vancouver has not been able to find their game this season, despite going deep in last year’s playoffs. With long-term injuries to several players, including Elias Pettersson, Micheal Ferland, and Jay Beagle, they’ve been an even worse team, offensively. Veteran goaltender Braden Holtby has had one of his worst seasons to date since joining the Canucks and despite Thatcher Demko‘s solid showing, Vancouver had let in an average of 3.25 goals per game this season.
Right-wing Brock Boeser is their leading scorer, but still only tallied 20 goals on the season. The Vancouver Canucks have a long way to go if they want to be competitive in the upcoming seasons. A bright spot for the Canucks is their young defensive core led by sophomore Quinn Hughes. But their offence is a different story, it’s one of the worst in the league. They need a lot of work if they want to be competitive in the NHL in the coming years. Calgary will find a way to put pucks behind Vancouver’s defence and best the Canucks again tonight.
Prediction: Flames win 3-2.
Main Photo:
Embed from Getty Images
