A pair of Northwest Division rivals will begin their 2008-09 campaigns tonight, as the Vancouver Canucks welcome the Calgary Flames to General Motors Place.

The Flames finished third in the division last year with 94 points, while Vancouver was last despite finishing just six points in back of Calgary.

Calgary made the postseason for the third straight year last spring, but was also knocked out in the opening round for the third time in a row. Flames head coach Mike Keenan will try to change that trend this year and he has a few new weapons at his disposal to do so.

This offseason, Calgary general manager Darryl Sutter, the team's head coach for the 2004 run to the Cup final, opted to make numerous on-ice personnel changes designed to get the Flames back to the Stanley Cup finals, where they lost to Tampa Bay in 2004.

Gone are veteran forwards Kristian Huselius, Owen Nolan, Alex Tanguay and Stephane Yelle. Filling in some of those spots will be a task assigned to newcomers such as Mike Cammalleri, Todd Bertuzzi, Rene Bourque and Curtis Glencross.

The injection of new blood into this year's equation is an attempt to lessen the scoring load for Jarome Iginla, who had 32 more points than the second- highest scoring Flame last season.

The play of starting goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff will also be important. The Finnish netminder has played in 224 regular-season games over the last three seasons and that workload may have caused Kiprusoff to have a down season in 2007-08.

Kiprusoff started 76 games for Calgary last year and posted a solid record of 39-26-10, but both his goals against average (2.69) and save percentage (.906) were his worst marks since the Flames acquired him early in the 2003-04 season.

Meanwhile, it's been a tale of two seasons for the Canucks recently.

In 2006-07, the Canucks won the Northwest Division, set franchise records with 49 wins and 105 points, advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2003 and Alain Vigneault won the Jack Adams Trophy as the league's best head coach.

Last year, Vancouver dropped off 17 points and 10 wins and stumbled out of playoff contention with losses in seven of eight games to the end year. The negative turnaround resulted in the firing of general manager Dave Nonis and the risky hiring of former player agent Mike Gillis as his successor.

The good news is that Roberto Luongo, one of the best goaltenders in the world, will still be stationed between the pipes at GM Place. The bad news is that the same offensive issues that plagued the team last year will likely be a problem once again.

The Canucks won the season series, 5-3, against Calgary last season and has taken nine of the last 14 meetings overall. The Flames have also been defeated in five of seven and seven of their last 10 trips to BC.

The Flames have lost five straight season-opening games, while Vancouver had won four in a row to begin a campaign before a setback to visiting San Jose last year.

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