THE BATTLE OF ALBERTA MATTERS AGAIN
McDavid performs a one-man show as hat trick supplies all the opener’s offence
OILERS 3, FLAMES 0
Hockey fans in Edmonton and Calgary can admit it now — we’d been lying about the battle of Alberta for about 15 years.
We pretended it was a rivalry, pretended it mattered, tried to convince ourselves and everyone else that the Oilers and Flames were anything more than an irrelevant B division sideshow that affected little more than draft positioning.
But the battle is back, finally. The teams are for real, the stakes are high and there is a very good chance they will see each other in the post-season soon, and for a long time.
So it was with great anticipation that the Oilers and Flames delivered the first instalment Wednesday night in the season opener at Rogers Place, with Edmonton drawing first blood in a 3-0 victory on three goals from Connor McDavid and a season-opening shutout
from Cam Talbot.
It wasn’t exactly a barnburner, thanks to newly acquired Flames netminder Mike Smith and the inability of anyone but Edmonton’s first line to generate many chances.
But when you’ve got McDavid, things just seem to have a way of working out in the end, and they did. McDavid, who set the tone early with a partial breakaway on his first shift, made it 1-0 at 11:01 of the first period, blew past defencemen Travis Hamonic and T.J. Brodie to score eight minutes into the third and then put the finishing touch into an empty net.
It’s only Game 1 of the season, but with the Oilers having swept the four-game series last year — representing a 16-point swing in the standings — both sides know what these games mean.
“Divisional points are huge,” McDavid said. “(The Flames) will be the first to tell you that losing four (of ) their games against us last year really hurt their playoff push. Ultimately they got in, but it kind of put them behind the 8-ball.
“They have high expectations in Calgary and so do we.”
While Edmonton got a lot of the pre-season hype, the Flames believe they belong in that conversation after bolstering their lineup with Hamonic and Smith and then capping it with Jaromir Jagr a few days before the season started.
“I think they’ve done really good things with their team over the summer,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan said. “Goaltending-wise, adding to the blue-line, it’s as good a group of six as anybody has in the league and as good as Mike Smith plays the puck, we might as well call it seven defencemen.
“I think it’s exciting for Edmonton, for Calgary and for Alberta to have both teams competitive again and battling against each other. We have to cherish those games when we do play each other. They should be fun.”
It’s not only fans and media who are excited about the prospect of the Oilers and Flames truly renewing their once-great feud. The fact both sides are moving up to the heavyweight division resonates with the players, too.
“There is a lot of firepower on both sides, but also a lot of grit and toughness on both sides,” Milan Lucic said. “And with the way the standings are set up, we know how important divisional games are now.”
“You have two very good teams going at it, and with that comes the rivalry,” added Leon Draisaitl, who wasn’t even born the last time this series meant anything. “Both teams are expected to make the playoffs. That will make it a lot more interesting.”
And if we’re lucky, this is only the start.
“For me, the real battle of Alberta starts in the playoffs,” Oilers centre Mark Letestu said. “And it almost lined up last year — we only missed it by a few points. The regular season games mean a lot because of the division, but the true battle will start when we get back into the playoffs together the rivalry will really reignite.”
LATE HITS
Kailer Yamamoto didn’t see a lot of ice time in his NHL debut, just 6:05 through the first 40 minutes … Drake Caggiula left the game in the first period after colliding with a Flame during a line change, but returned late in the second.