5 Things - Flames vs. Islanders

1. Back From The ‘Break’

Two days off?

In a ROW?!

While it might be a rarity – unthinkably so in this racket – the Flames took full advantage and returned to practice Monday with all sorts of energy in the coffers.

“I think that's the first time – unless it's a break – in my seven years I've had two days off,” said Rasmus Andersson. “I enjoyed the weekend with my family, had both the kids buzzing around, so it was busy, but it was good.”

Considering the world tour the Flames have been on over the past few weeks – bouncing between the mountain, eastern and pacific time zones – Head Coach Ryan Huska could sense his team needed a breather.

And for the first time this year, the calendar offered a reprieve with three days between home games.

Naturally, Andersson notes, the boss wouldn’t have offered up this luxury had his troops not earned it in the first place.

But having beaten the Nashville Predators last Friday, and with Dustin Wolf earning his first-career bagel in the process, it’s clear the squad’s ‘give-a-crap’ meter is through the roof.

Legs or no legs, they were not going to be denied.

“I feel good with my game,” said Wolf, who stopped 29 shots and one-upped the goalie he’s long admired, Juuse Saros, behind a thunderous ovation at the Scotiabank Saddledome. “I feel confident – and I feel confident with the guys in front of me as well. They make my life a heck of a lot easier, being able to see pucks; their sticks have been great through seams. When something does break down, I've felt to be able to shut them down and at the end of the day, we score more than the other team, we're going to be pretty happy.”

With the win, Wolf improves to 6-2-1 on the year, while boasting an impressive .921 save percentage and a 2.53 goals-against average, while providing one half of the partnership that’s given the Flames a league-leading .943 save percentage at 5-on-5.

The product of Gilroy, Calif., has now won 10 of his last 13 starts dating back to last season.

2. Know Your Enemy

The Islanders are coming off a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday and are now 1-1-1 on a five-game road trip.

Jamie Oleksiak broke a 2-2 tie with 3:13 left in the third period, as the Kraken rallied from one down to snap the visitors’ five-game point streak (3-0-2).

Pierre Engvall and Brock Nelson supplied the goals for Patrick Roy’s outfit, while Ilya Sorokin was victimized three times on 27 shots, keeping him at 99 career wins.

“I loved my team tonight,” Roy told NHLcom. “We played a strong game, played a solid road game. I thought we had our chances. I thought we possessed the puck. I thought we defended well, except before the second goal, where we had a bit of a miscommunication. But the first goal is bad luck. It hit their guy and went in the net, and the second goal, they made a great play, but at the same time, our coverage (could have been better), and I’m not going to talk about the third goal.”

Roy challenged the Oleksiak tally for goaltender interference, but the call was upheld.

The Islanders – who are currently without star centre Mat Barzal (LTIR), Anthony Duclair (LTIR) and others (more on that below) – roll into the Stampede City as one of the more snake-bit teams on the circuit. On Saturday, they out-chanced the Kraken 24-15 and had a 9-5 edge in high-danger looks, but finishing continues to plague them.

The Isles currently rank 25th with an average of 2.61 goals per game – down from 2.99 a year prior. And the effect has been significant. When they score fewer than three goals per game, they’re 0-6-1 and are 4-2-4, overall, in one-goal contests.

Still, there's no shortage of firepower.

Kyle Palmieri leads the Islanders with 16 points (7G, 9A), followed by Bo Horvat (14 points), Lee (13 points), and Brock Nelson and Maxim Tsyplakov (10 points each).

On Monday, the Islanders received both good news and bad news when it comes to the health of defenceman Mike Reilly. The 31-year-old has been out of the lineup since Nov. 1 as he recovers from a concussion. However, during routine post-concussion tests, it was determined that the blueliner will have to undergo a procedure to address a heart condition unrelated to the initial injury.

"It's probably a blessing in disguise of what transpired," Islanders President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Lou Lamoriello said in a team statement. "They detected this, something that you're sometimes born with but never knew."

3. Fast Facts

Howlin' For You:

When Dustin Wolf recorded his first-career shutout on Friday, he became the third California-born goaltender in NHL history to do so, joining Thatcher Demko (8) and John Blue (1). ... Wolf recorded 11 shutouts at the AHL level from 2021 to 2024.

Familiar Faces:

Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Sorokin were teammates in the KHL with CSKA Moscow for four seasons from 2014-15 to 2017-18.

Additionally, Daniil Miromanov and Islanders blueliner Noah Dobson were teammates on the Acadie-Bathurst Titan during the 2016-17 season. Miromanov led all Titan defenceman in scoring that season with 22 goals and 40 assists for 62 points in 68 games, while Dobson’s +34 rating on the season was second-best on the club.

And speaking of those two ...

4. Players To Watch

Flames - Daniil Miromanov

It doesn’t matter if you’re in Timbits or The Show, getting that monkey off your back provides a seismic lift in confidence.

“I’ve been getting some looks,” Miromanov said Monday, following his game-winning, backdoor strike on Friday vs. Nashville. “It’s great to feel that one go in, especially this important one.”

The goal was Miromanov’s first of the season.

But the jolt it supplies could be the springboard to a whole lot more.

“I don't know if ‘careful’ is the right word,” Huska said when evaluating the blueliner’s game this year. “He just didn't impact the game the game in any way.

“When Miro was at his best from what we saw last year, he was skating, he was involved, and I felt like he was using his size to close on people quickly defensively. And that wasn't what we were seeing early in the year. Lately, I feel like we're seeing that again. It's probably because he feels a little more settled in his role and who he's going to play with that he's not going to be taken in and out of the lineup. I think that comes into it. But we need him to keep taking steps, because we need him – and his ability and his size on the backend – to be a really good player for us.”

CalgaryFlames.com colleague Chris Wahl wrote about Miromanov rounding into form following Monday’s workout. Click here for the full story.

Islanders - Noah Dobson

For Flames fans who don’t see a lot of the Islanders, tonight’s game will offer a tease of what’s on tap for Team Canada at the upcoming Four Nations Faceoff.

Dobson is one of Canada’s best blueliners and is coming off a breakout season in the Empire State. The 24-year-old native of Summerside, PEI, had 70 points (10G, 60A) in 78 games last season to smash his previous career high by 19 points.

The 2018 first-round pick is off to a slower start offensively with eight points (1G, 7A) in 18 games, largely because of a 1.9% shooting percentage that will bounce back to the 5-6% he’s used to – eventually. But even so, he remains the Islanders’ workhorse, averaging an even 25 minutes per game in ice time, which currently stands as a career high.

5. Quotable

Dustin Wolf on hosting two of the best goalies, Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin, this week at the 'Dome:

“There's a handful of guys, for sure. Igor's been terrific the last couple years and the guy you don't mention there is Quickie (Jonathan Quick) – he's had back-to-back shutouts and he's been a guy I've grown up watching forever. It will be cool to see him on the ice on Thursday. But Sorokin and Shesterkin are two elite guys and guys you want to put yourself up against, to try and showcase that you can play at their level.”