The Battle of Alberta: Two Teams Fighting Their Way Out of the Noise an Contention
It’s fair to say things are improving for Calgary and Edmonton since the last Battle of Alberta.
The two teams sat in 30th and 31st place in the standings with a single game left in October and just three combined wins over 15 games.
With the month closing out and the outside noise drawing to unbearable levels, the Flames and Oilers looked to their Oct. 29 Heritage Classic meeting as a possible opportunity to turn the page.
A sloppy three periods of awkward transition play and broken sequences ensued. Edmonton took the game 5-2 off a one-goal, two-assist performance from Evander Kane and a .923 outing from Stuart Skinner. Edmonton’s win moved them past Calgary in the standings to seize 30th place.
Little did either group know of the changes on the horizon.
Edmonton
The Oilers weren’t entirely done losing after the Heritage Classic. The team went 1-4-0, including a highly publicized loss to the last-place San Jose Sharks on Nov. 9 before the team took dire actions.
Head Coach Jay Woodcroft and Assistant Coach Dave Manson were relieved of their duties on Nov 12, 2023. A new voice to lead the room in Kris Knoblauch, a bit of time for Connor Mcdavid’s upper body injury to heal, and the eventual recovery of Matthias Ekholm’s hip issues resulted in Edmonton finding their way back into a form that saw the team go 17-2-1 (.875 winning percentage) following last season’s March 3 NHL Trade Deadline.
Since Knoblauch’s hiring, the Oilers have put up the second-best points percentage in the NHL at .786 and a 22-6-0 record. Coming into Saturday’s game, the team is currently on a 12-game winning streak. Edmonton holds four games (41) in hand and one point (51) on LA, the team they pushed out of a divisional playoff spot and into the Wildcard race directly above Calgary in the standings.
If Saturday’s game were to be an allegory for the story of David and Goliath, you can make a safe guess on who would play the titular giant.
Calgary made some changes of their own following their loss to their archrival on Oct. 29th.
Calgary
The next game after the Heritage Classic was against the Dallas Stars on Nov. 2. The evening featured the rookie debut of 2020 24th overall pick Connor Zary. The Saskatoon Sniper made a statement in game one of his career with a goal on his first shot.
The Flames lost the game 4-3 but undeniably had found something to cheer for.
Two nights later, Martin Pospisil made his own rookie debut and scored his own first NHL goal en route to a 6-3 win over the Seattle Kraken.
And so was born the ZKP line of Connor Zary, Nazem Kadri, and Martin Pospisil. Kadri went from a goal, an assist, and a -11 even strength goal differential in nine October games to 15 goals, 20 assists, and 35 points in 36 games since Zary’s introduction to the league. His plus-minus at 5v5 is a much more appealing +13 over that span.
The Flames put up a 6th-place 8-4-2 record through November and hiked their overall total to 10-10-5. What should have been a demoralizing loss on the national stage ended up standing as the final hour of darkness before the dawn of a modern era youth movement.
The flip of the calendar once again brought unexpected adversity. Stumbling into the final month of 2023, the Flames were 2-4-2 by Dec. 17. Markstrom was out of the lineup with a broken finger suffered while making a phenomenal save during practice, the team was adjusting to life without Nikita Zadorov, and trade rumours haunted the dressing room’s pending UFAs.
