NHL: San Jose vs Calgary Pick
Hockey Night in Canada’s west coast game will feature the San Jose Sharks (13-10-4) and the Calgary Flames (17-8-2). Cappers Picks will provide free NHL picks all season so check back in often.
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San Jose vs Calgary
When: Saturday Dec. 6 at 10:00 pm EST
Where: Scotia Bank Saddledome
TV: CBC
NHL ATS Gambling Line: Calgary -102 / San Jose -108
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The Flames and Sharks will meet for the second time in 10 days and San Jose will look to atone for a 2-0 defeat they were handed on home ice at the hands of the Flames. Calgary has been red hot (pun intended) to start this season and are looking like this year’s Colorado Avalanche.
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Can the young and plucky Flames team sustain this play for a full 82 games? Will the Sharks, who have been rather slow to get going this year find their stride? These questions and more will be answered as we preview the Saturday night fixture.
Sharks
This perennial Pacific Division powerhouse has had one of its slowest starts in recent memory. Maybe that can be attributed to the departure of Dan Boyle, or maybe this team is just starting to show its age, as much of the core (Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns) are starting to get up there in years.
Don’t be fooled by the slow start though as this is still a very good hockey team that is capable of dominating almost any team when they’re on their game. Since that 2-0 loss to Calgary 10 days ago the Sharks have run off three straight wins over Anaheim, Philadelphia and Boston, amassing 15 goals in the process. If this offense is starting to wake up, look out Western Conference because the Sharks are going to start running teams over.
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Antti Niemi will get the start in net against the Flames and he has a sparkling 12-3-1 record against them with a GAA just over two. Niemi was sharp last time out, surrendering just one goal before the Flames added an empty netter, San Jose just couldn’t get any run support for their netminder and outshot the Flames 32-18 but were stonewalled by Karri Ramo.
Flames
That statistic just above has been a constant for the Flames which is why I believe this team will take a nose dive at some point this season. They’ve been winning a lot of games where they’ve been thoroughly outplayed and their goalie has kept them in it. They also lead the NHL in third period comebacks. At some point those anomalies will come to a halt and the Flames are going to need to be better over 60 minutes instead of dawdling around and letting their goalie steal them points.
As of right now it looks like Bob Hartley will go with Jonas Hiller in net, which is a little surprising given how well Ramo played the last time these two teams met. Hiller’s record against the Sharks is anything but outstanding with a win-loss record of 8-10-2, and that all would have come behind a solid Anaheim team.
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Calgary is riding a win streak of their own right now with four straight victories, that streak started back on Nov. 26 when they beat this same Sharks team. Calgary wasn’t very convincing in their last game though, a 4-3 OT win over the Avalanche in a game where yet again they were behind in the dying embers of the game before Dennis Wideman knotted the score at 3-3 with less than 90 seconds left on the clock.
Sharks vs. Flames 4* Free Pick
The Sharks are out for revenge in this one and I feel like Calgary will need their goalie (whoever gets the call) to be stellar if they want any hope in this one. San Jose has been finding the net with ease lately and are coming off a seven goal explosion over the normally stingy Boston Bruins. Calgary can’t get behind in this one and expect to come back, the Sharks are just too good of a team to spot a lead. Take San Jose in this game.
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