{"id":460878,"date":"2025-01-16T14:45:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=460878"},"modified":"2025-01-16T14:45:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:45:26","slug":"nhl-predictions-january-16-calgary-flames-vs-st-louis-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/01\/16\/nhl-predictions-january-16-calgary-flames-vs-st-louis-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Predictions: January 16 Calgary Flames vs. St. Louis Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to NHL Predictions. Each day,\u00a0<\/span>Last Word on Hockey<\/span><\/em>\u00a0takes a look at the games that are happening and gives our predictions for each one, breaking down head-to-head matchups and other factors that may play in. Today we\u2019re looking at the\u00a0<\/span>Calgary Flames<\/a> against the St. Louis Blues<\/a><\/span>. Be sure to check out more\u00a0<\/span>NHL predictions<\/span>\u00a0every day there\u2019s hockey this 2024-25 season.<\/span><\/p>\n

NHL Predictions<\/span><\/h2>\n

Calgary Flames<\/span><\/a> (21-15-7) vs St. Louis Blues<\/a> (21-20-4)<\/span><\/h3>\n

Head-to-Head: Flames 0-2 Blues<\/h4>\n

Time:<\/span><\/strong> 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)<\/span><\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>ESPN+; SNW; Fan Duel Sports Midwest<\/span><\/p>\n

The and Flames head into their final matchup<\/a> of the season tonight. An odd setup on the schedule has the Flames and Blues playing against each other twice in three nights, both in St. Louis. The Blues won the first two games each by one goal, including a 2-1 win just two days ago. Both St. Louis and Calgary are pushing to make the playoffs. Calgary currently finds themselves in the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference with the Blues just three points behind them. Tonight’s matchup feels like a big one for both teams as they try to keep pace in the playoff race. Let’s dive into the latest storylines for both teams heading into this game.<\/p>\n

Make It Or Break It Stretch For Blues Continues<\/h3>\n

St. Louis is looking to close out a four-game home stand with a 3-1 record and better their playoff hopes. Following tonight’s game St. Louis will enter a tough stretch of eight games. They’ll play the team chasing them in the standings, Utah<\/a> twice, as well as six games against Western Conference playoff teams. St. Louis has built a roster that has a good mix of young and older players and the play over the next few weeks will determine if they look to add to their roster or trade away veterans at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

The Blues have improved slightly under head coach<\/a> Jim Montgomery<\/a>. St. Louis brought in Montgomery after winning just nine of their first 22 games. Since taking over the Blues have won 12 of the 23 games under their new bench boss. St. Louis is in the middle of the pack in both goals for and goals against which has them sitting middle of the league in the standings. St. Louis is a team with enough skill and enough veteran leadership they wouldn’t be a surprise to make the playoffs. At the same time, if they don’t start winning at a better rate they’ll likely end up just outside the playoff picture once again.<\/p>\n

Flames Need To Push<\/h3>\n

As mentioned above the Flames currently sit in the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference, although being in or out seems to change every night. Calgary has surprised all the experts and the statistics this season. Most predictions had the Flames in the draft lottery by this time of the year. However, Calgary has proven to be a resilient group and continues to find ways to win. In addition to simply defying predictions, Calgary is defying analytics as well. The Flames are 28th in the league in goals for, while also having the third-worst penalty kill in the league. The combination of not being able to score, and giving up powerplay goals at the rate in which they do should have them well outside the playoffs. However, the Flames goaltending and team defence don’t give up many 5-on-5 goals. This keeps the Flames in a lot of close one-goal games. Calgary has found a way to win more of those games than they lose and that has them overachieving.<\/p>\n

The next two weeks of hockey could go a long way to determining Calgary’s fate. If they continue to win and stay in the playoff race it will be time to give this hard-working team the credit they deserve. If however, their inability to score and kill penalties starts leading to more losses, the harsh reality that this group just isn’t good enough will set in. Whichever way it goes general manager Craig Conroy<\/a> will be paying close attention<\/a> to determine the direction of his team ahead of the deadline.<\/a><\/p>\n

Prediction<\/h3>\n

Both teams will enter tonight’s game motivated. These two teams are in the group battling for a wild card spot this year so a win for one and a loss for the other means that much more in the standings.\u00a0Based on the first two games between these teams it’s safe to say this contest could likely come down to just one goal.<\/p>\n

The Flames came into the last matchup on the second half of a back-to-back so this game should have a little more energy and could have more of a playoff feel with what’s at stake. These two teams feel too evenly matched for a season sweep. Expect Calgary to push hard and win a close one tonight.<\/p>\n

Prediction: Flames win, 3-2<\/em><\/p>\n

Prop Bets of The Night<\/span><\/h3>\n

We finish out this set of NHL Predictions with some prop bets. On the Flames side, we expect Matthew Coronato<\/a> to have an impact game. He’s been improving as the season has progressed and despite not recording a point last game he looked dangerous. We like taking Coronato to go over 0.5 points at +200 tonight.<\/p>\n

With the Flames poor penalty kill, we like taking Jordan Kyrou<\/a> to record over 0.5 powerplay points for the Blues in this contest at +430.<\/p>\n

Main photo by: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n

Please play responsibly, and check for your local rules and age restrictions, some jurisdictions require ages 21+. Gambling problem? Call\u00a01-800-GAMBLER<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to NHL Predictions. Each day,\u00a0Last Word on Hockey\u00a0takes a look at the games that are happening and gives our predictions for each one, breaking down head-to-head matchups and other factors that may play in. Today we\u2019re looking at the\u00a0Calgary Flames against the St. Louis Blues. Be sure to check out more\u00a0NHL predictions\u00a0every day there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5244,"featured_media":448114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4547,4548,4524,32],"tags":[103,6015,6061],"class_list":["post-460878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flames","category-hockey","category-nhl","category-nhl-predictions","category-blues","tag-calgary-flames","tag-calgary-flames-predictions","tag-st-louis-blues-predictions"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460931,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460878\/revisions\/460931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}