There will be no Battle of Alberta - at least in the opening round of this year's playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers made a good push for top spot in the Pacific, which would have guaranteed a date with the Calgary Flames, but the Anaheim Ducks managed to hold them off thanks to a come-from-behind victory on the final night of the regular season. As such, the Ducks will square off with the Calgary Flames in the opening round.
The Flames lost four of five games against the Ducks during the regular season but the season series wasn't as one-sided as it appears.
Anaheim won the 5v5 shot attempt battle and scoring chance battle (although, Calgary had the slight edge in high-danger looks) but the margins were small. It's not as if the Ducks skated the Flames into the ground and embarrassed them.
The Ducks are a very good team, obviously, and playing great hockey right now -- their last regulation loss came 15 games ago -- but the Flames should feel confident they can play with them.
I'll go into more detail on matchups, potential weakness, etc. in the coming days but I am expecting this series to be a long one.
Here is how the schedule breaks down:
*if necessary
Game 1: Thursday, April 13 at10:30 pm eastern Game 2: Saturday, April 15 at 10:30 pm eastern Game 3: Monday, April 17 at 10:00 pm eastern Game 4: Wednesday, April 19 at 10:00 pm eastern Game 5: Friday, April 21 -- TBD* Game 6: Sunday, April 23 -- TBD* Game 7: Tuesday, April 25 -- TBD*
This is one of two series (Edmonton vs San Jose being the other) with games scheduled every other day for its entirety. On one hand, I love the schedule as it keeps the flow going and there are no extended waits for games. On the other hand, this is going to be a very physical series and no extra days off could cause problems for players that are banged up - and there will be a lot of them.
This is going to be a great matchup.
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