The Flames take on the Avalanche in Denver tonight (7PM MT, TSN), with a chance to the make a playoff spot all but mathematically official. Paul Stastny is still working that rookie point-scoring streak, and is starting to get some love for the Calder.

As you can see at left, that love is well deserved... Malkin is 7 points ahead entirely due to his greater PP time, where he's actually less productive than Stastny; the fact that Stastny kills penalties (2:23 PK time per game) should only serve to bolster his case, surely.

Hey, look what I just did! I fell victim to the same fallacy I alluded to (scoffed at) below re: MAB & Petersen. I implied that since the coach uses Stastny on the PK, that must mean that he's competent at it -- which is certainly no guarantee. Question -- or maybe this is a challenge to a joint like TSN.ca -- why doesn't anyone keep penalty killing stats? Here we are in 2007, and we're still assuming like suckers that the best penalty killers are the ones that keep getting thrown out there. Can't someone use the awesome power of the information superhighway to inform us who the most effective PKers really are? That seems like something that would be interesting to semi-casual fans, and it would certainly add an element to the debate over the Selke Trophy (or over the $$ value of various defensive-minded free agents). Get working on that, would you TSN?

(They won't, by the way. They'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on TSN Talent to chase rumours around, but won't spend $25k to have someone differentiate their stats page from Yahoo! or NHL.com).

Colorado is an explosive team with a particularly good PP at home. I'd like the Flames to start by taking less than 4 penalties in the 1st period; I'm pretty sure that would help the cause. I'd also like Roman Hamrlik to shake out of this brutal funk he's in.

Stempniak's (second) tying goal on Monday featured another baffling play by the Hammer: he's defending a 2-on-2, and David Backes has the puck on Phaneuf's side. Hamrlik wanders over to challenge Backes (Puzzler #1), and then when Backes moves the puck towards Stempniak -- in the area of ice Hammer has just vacated -- Hamrlik decides that this would be a good time to finish his check (Puzzler #2)... so at the approximate moment that his shoulder is hitting Backes' chest, Stempniak is sliding the puck under Kipper, untouched. I don't know what he could do for an encore tonight. If he steps on a broken stick, I'm turning the TV off.

I'm going to ignore precedent, and guess that it'll be a low-scoring game tonight. Calgary 3 (Primeau, Iginla, Huselius) Colorado 2 (Arnason, Klee). Go Flames.