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The Calgary Flames have an extra special matchup tonight against the Minnesota Wild with a plethora of players facing their old teams with a major focus on Blake Coleman making his return to Cowtown. Plus, the lineup looks extra funky with Michael Backlund out and Ben Jones making his Flames debut. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest. I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure you subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family and the story of the night is saying welcome back to Blake. I mean, last night we saw someone make their return, of course, talking about Brady, Brady Kachuk, going over to Ottawa. That didn't go so well for Mr. Kachuk there, but we're kind of hoping the same thing happens for Coleman tonight. But obviously, Blake Coleman is not going to be getting the treatment that Brady Kachuk received because we dearly do love Blake Coleman. And it goes tonight as we welcome the Minnesota Wild to the Dome at 7 p.m. So by the time this video is out, puck drop will probably be about an hour away. I'm actually going to this game once again. Feel super, super lucky going with my dad who took me to so many games to the Dome. So I'm treating him to one here tonight. But let's talk about Coleman. It's not all about me. One kind of funny quote I wanted to share with you guys was what he had to say about kind of his time in Calgary with the Flames. so he said oh man definitely not comfortable with kilometers i still don't know how to convert those but i do say a a lot my family calls me out from time to time so obviously he's an american guy from texas but we got it to rub off on him at least a little bit not with the kilometers he probably still does his temperature in fahrenheit as well but at least he says a every now and then which is quite funny now his season so far with minnesota coming into this one he doesn't have too many points just three points has a couple goals on the year i mean that would be doing pretty excellent on the Flames uh to be honest but Minnesota very successful team Coleman not expected to be a huge you know offensive producer which he hasn't been so far but still having an okay season uh coming into this one a bit of a storyline is that he's not had the best recent form uh in his past five games here he's got no points no goals um which is a little bit too bad so maybe you know he'll get a point back in his old stomping grounds tonight obviously he's a guy who loved playing in Calgary so it was tough when we did trade him away and I know a lot of people are not liking the uh the Coleman trade with the return that we got with Middleton and stuff that's why obviously the Flames social team decided to use Middleton because he's playing uh in his first game against his old team the Minnesota Wild the other guy who's completely been forgotten in all of this Oli Motta was part of the trade the best defenseman in Flames history which is of course needs to be said so how did Coleman become a member of the Wild as this graphic says how Coleman became a Wild which is such a funny way to say that that's why all the team names should end with a you know or be plural but anyway uh minnesota received him back in the trade with Oli Motta on july 2nd calgary obviously got Middleton that 2029 second at 2027 third and at 2027 fourth so middleton and picks and then obviously calgary did retain 50 of the salary as well so that was kind of the full deal there but as Ryan Pike points out here again it's not going to be like the Brady Kachuk scenario or the Quinn Hughes one coming up in Vancouver on the weekend Ryan Pike says i for one am excited for the a the Flames production team's Blake Coleman tribute video tonight and i saw on twitter uh the the tribute video hasn't been released but apparently the person who made it is quite stoked uh and be the fans reaction to said video Coleman really will return to the dome for the first time since since a July trade to Minnesota this evening it only took me so long to just get one sentence out as you can tell once again i'm recording this at work just because i wanted to get it out before the game and my goodness am i struggling but i completely agree with mr pike here can't wait for the tribute video and the fans reaction not only to the video but to you know Coleman probably doing a little lap with his stick up just really really excited to see that in person as well who doesn't love a bit of pickles the Texas Tiger we have not been talking about them enough tonight now Calgary versus Minnesota head-to-head i i was kind of interested to look into the deeper stats because they used to be a division opponent of ours back when it was i believe the Northwest Division with Edmonton Vancouver Colorado Minnesota and obviously ourselves so Calgary actually owns them in the uh in the all-time we're 60 33 and 13 with four ties back from them we're still ties back when Minnesota was a freshly new team but we have a .623 points percentage against them all time in the last 10 as well 6-3-1 which is a little surprising because Minnesota has been a bit of a stronger team lately whereas we haven't but Minnesota did win the season series last year going 2-1 we went 1-2 the last home meeting was a 4-1 Flames win though but a new season means new stakes this is the first of three meetings of course the first one again at 7 p.m tonight at the Dome so very interested to see Minnesota for so many years honestly at least a couple decades with such a boring team they're finally exciting to watch so excited to see that personally i've actually seen Minnesota i think more than any other team as an opponent at Flames games maybe Vancouver but uh yeah once again i'm seeing them again to make it about me uh but let's get into our goalies now because the Flames haven't played in quite a while not since that great win we're on a winning streak against Carolina on Sunday but both goalies are rested which is a little bit interesting now Cooley's stats uh he's played less games but his stats are much much better especially if you look at that save percentage there so both are fresh but I will let you know in just a second which one will be starting between the two before I get into that I did quickly want to show this one graphic that I thought was interesting looking at deeper statistics which I didn't really realize that the Flames would be put in kind of this one they just turned out the lights on me but playing well and winning so certain teams are playing well and winning certain teams aren't playing too well and winning the Flames are kind of in a you know at least according to this graphic they've been put in a category here where they're playing okay they're just losing the 50 50s and then they're losing a lot which was super interesting to me because we've been rinsed in a few of our losses this year we have a couple six one losses seven three so i thought it was really interesting that we were put in that category but who knows which team will show up tonight it looks like we're at least getting a little bit better now i did want to get into some roster notes as well because the lineup like i said in the intro is a little bit funky uh heading into tonight so huska says Backlund is day-to-day with an upper body injury this report coming from eric francis um which means you know he's hurt he's not going to be playing today now his season so far he's got a couple points he's a minus three which actually isn't too bad uh on the flames this year and the main you know vacancy the main hole that that brings up is actually on our special teams not so much on our power play but on our penalty kill he is with white cloud you know our main penalty killer he's our main penalty killing forward as well i know Farabee's in there a lot uh but Backlund kind of leaves that hole so if the Flames do take quite a few penalties tonight it'll be very interesting to see who steps up on that penalty kill and kind of gets the job done because Backlund he can win face-offs he's not you know too shabby i guess these days uh well actually he's pretty sure his percentage is declining but still he can get the job done very experienced veteran so it'll be very interesting to see who steps up at least in that position um in terms of who got called up recently recalled Ben Jones is taking Backlund's place at practice uh between Farabee and Coronado Hanley was in for Middleton but Middleton should be good to go tonight uh and Siplekov remains as the extra four so even with Ben Jones being recalled Siplekov is your extra which is interesting so uh Backlund and Middleton weren't skating yesterday or actually this is tuesday morning way back then Backlund missed the final three minutes or so of sunday's win after a hit from Carolina's I believe that is going to say William Carrier so that was kind of what was going on with that to just expand on that slightly further Backlund will not play due to injury for sure tonight so he won't play tonight Ben Jones makes his season debut we will see the lines and pairings at warm-up which again by the time this video is out is probably not too far away but very interesting to know that Devin Cooley is your starter it's not Wolf despite By both of them being rested, it is Cooley. So riding the hot goalie. So daily face-off, they kind of put out what they expect the lineup to be. And it looks interesting because Jones looks like your number one center, which is hilarious on that top line. But he is centering Coronado and Ferriby. Sunyev with Frost and Sharkey. Strome with Pospisil and Gritton. And then Othman with Castagna and Klapka. Very, very interesting forward group. That's not guaranteed 100% what it will be. But holy cow, if that's what it is, that is one of the Flames lineups of all time defense stays the same, Weigand, White Cloud and Hanley actually is in oh so Middleton's not playing well actually my guess is he still will why would the Flames use him on the graphic if he wasn't but there's a chance that Hanley will be in and not Middleton and then Perek with Kuznetsov which is what everyone loves with Cooley as their starter Wolf as your backup again not confirmed that just what Daily Faceoff thinks but it could happen just to focus on Jones a little bit more so he has earned his Flames debut his NHL career thus far actually began in Vegas he played a couple of games with the Golden Knights then with Minnesota he played 54 games got just a goal and two assists only three points in his NHL career so far in 56 games which is pretty crazy for a guy who is lighting it up in the AHL this year he has seven goals and two assists in seven Wrangler games before getting recalled so I'm really excited to see him play to be honest that's not what I thought I'd be saying heading into this game but i'm excited to see what ben jones has to offer here and per the club the flames obviously have called up ben jones from the wranglers he'll take the roster spot opened up when they placed sam hanzik on ir so it's not like he's filling in you know Backlund's technical role because Backlund's just day-to-day he's filling up the roster spot that was freed up for Hanzik of course so once Hanzik is healthy things will get interesting once again and then Backlund and Huberdeau when they're all healthy i'm really interested to see how this all shakes out i hope there aren't certain guys that are the odd man out like Sounia but hey that's a problem for a later day i suppose now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we love to do here on the channel comes from yesterday's video of course and it'll pop up in a moment here it says uh white cloud wc stands for white cloud but white cloud definitely has great trade value but why trade someone who likes the city the team has become a leader of said team and has become a great part of the community seems kind of pointless to trade him and that was a very shared sentiment on yesterday's video about those white cloud rumors it just seems like you know he just has done everything right here what's the point in trading him if you're not going to fetch a complete haul and you need some veterans around for some of these younger guys what's the point in trading him and everyone obviously does understand the point of trading him but i think a lot of people are forgetting you know the reasons not to trade him so it's great to always point those out too thank you so much for watching this video please subscribe if you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day