The Calgary Flames need a win in the worst way.  They’ve lost 6 straight and 8 of their last 9 and have sunk to 8th place in the NHL Western Conference standings.  They’re actually tied with 9th place Detroit but hold the tiebreaker with the Red Wings, and lead Anaheim and Dallas who are tied for 10th by a mere three points.  They entertain the St. Louis Blues tonight who, despite their 13th place ranking in the West actually have a winning record.  Oddly, the Blues have played better on the road where they’ve got a 13-7-4 mark than at home where they’re 9-14-4.  We’ll take a NHL betting position on this game:

ST. LOUIS BLUES VS. CALGARY FLAMES:

The Flames will try to get back on the winning track at the Pengrowth Saddledome tonight, and they better do it quick as their season is slipping away.  They’ve got a tough pair of road games at Dallas and Phoenix on deck, so this game has even more importance.  Flames played reasonably well against the Chicago Blackhawks last time out though their offense continued to fizzle in a 3-1 loss.  At least the defense played better than their previous game, a 9-1 beatdown at the hands of the San Jose Sharks.

Calgary needs to win with defense, since they can’t beat anyone with their offense.  The Flames have scored more then 2 goals only twice in the last 9 games, so if they’re not doing a good job protecting their own net they’re going to get beat.  They did a decent job controlling tempo against Chicago despite the loss and the Blues should be an easier foe to execute their preferred game plan against.  Calgary has gone ‘over’ in only two of their last 13 games, and are ‘under’ in 17 of 26 at home this year.  They’ve only gone ‘over’ in 18 of 50 games this year (30 UN, 2 push) and with the urgency of a win here we look for Calgary to come out playing shutdown defense in front of Mikka Kiprusoff tonight.  These two teams have already played three times this year, with two of those three games going ‘under’ the total with an average of 4.3 goals per game.  4 of the last five at Calgary against the Blues have also gone ‘under’ and we look for this one to do the same.

PLAY CALGARY/ST. LOUIS UNDER 5 +120