You couldn’t ask for a nicer day.
Temperatures are climbing back to one degree Celsius, 33 degrees for our American friends, and with Commonwealth Stadium configured with an ice rink at center field, the stage is set for the 2023 Heritage Classic.
Unfortunately, life is about as far from clear and sunny as it gets for the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames.
Stumbling Out of the Gate Calgary enters today’s game on a four-game losing streak and most recently were shutout 3-0 by the St. Louis Blues.
The motley group of veterans have lost six of their last eight games and frankly seem to be playing worse as the losses accumulate. Their 28th ranked offence has had them scoring only 2.13 goals per game and their 24th ranked defence sees them allowing 3.50 goals per game. Their record is 2-5-1 heading into today and their play on the ice looks very much like a 2-5-1 team.
Not to be outdone, Edmonton enters today’s game on a four-game losing streak and most recently were shutout 3-0 by the New York Rangers.
Their defence has absolutely sewered itself and currently ranks last in the NHL at 4.28 goals against per game. Despite having two of the better players on the planet, their offence ranks 25th with 2.43 goals per game. While a 1-5-1 record to start the season would be perfectly average for Edmonton in the 2010s, the Oilers were seen as a Cup contender heading into this season and have failed to meet expectations through the first month.
This is all to say that we have a pretty fun game to watch tonight. We won’t be seeing two pedigreed prizefighters competing for a belt — this will be two starving castaways on a raft fighting for the last pretzel. One team can turn their fortune and the other will surely be dead in the water by evening’s end.
Let’s get to some game day notes, thoughts, and observations.
Injuries The biggest storyline (because of course it is) will be the return of Connor McDavid after missing two games with an upper body injury. It doesn’t sound like he’s at 100%. Here is what Edmonton Head Coach Jay Woodcroft had to say about the situation.
“I think it’s in conjunction with a few things, The player in conjunction with our team doctor and our team training staff, and ultimately the organization as a whole. But I thought today was a good day, it was a good step, and we’ll see how he is when he wakes up in the morning.…
This year he’s been fighting it. Hip flexors are a tricky part of the body and it would likely help in the long run to shut him down for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, we learned from the Jesse Puljujarvi situation that sometimes teams would rather the player play through it. Jesse had double hip surgery this offseason and is hoping to land a contract in the near future.
Ekholm has one assist and is a -5 on the season.
On that note, the Flames likely have a few of their own players in the same situation. Adam Ruzicka is attempting to practice despite injuring his shoulder on a hit from behind by New York’s Jimmy Vesey on Tuesday.
Dryden Hunt is practicing in his place on the first line with Elias Lindholm and Dillon Dube. May God help us all.
Another possible injury is Nazem Kadri. One assist and a -10 over eight games is bad. Unacceptable even. The hit below is from Thursday’s game against St. Louis. At a bare minimum, his ego should be considered day-to-day.
You simply love to see it pic.twitter.com/RHAGCYdGZa
— Blues Buzz (@bluesbuzzblog) October 27, 2023
Much like a 7:00 a.m. warehouse shift, there always seems to be that one guy. Warren Foegle seems impervious to the lack of energy the rest of the lineup suffers. If he had more finishing ability, he would likely have put the team on his back.
Hubris The Flames suffer something entirely different. They know, or at least believe, that they’re better than their 2-5-1 record. They have an older group who have seen success and know how to achieve it. Yet they’re simply not getting it done. Not even close. Nikita Zadorov’s words on Tuesday reflected that the group probably isn’t getting along.
"Last season was different. It was Darryl, now there’s no Darryl there’s no excuses. You guys don’t like hard coaches, you don’t like soft coaches, you don’t like good coaches. It’s a new day league. You come up here and you play hard & leave everything on the ice.""There’s some things that we need to get working on, but I think the main thing for us is we have too many individuals playing by themselves. We have to figure out, do we want to play as a team or do we want to play as your own guy?"
Calgary Flames Projected Lines Update at warmups. Here is Saturday’s practice lineup courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg Hunt–Lindholm–Dube Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Huberdeau-Kadri-Coronato Greer-Sharangovich-Duehr Ruzicka Hanifin-Weegar Solovyov-Tanev Zadorov-Gilbert Oesterle-Andersson
Markstrom Vladar
Edmonton Oilers Projected Lines Similar to Calgary. Here are Saturday’s practice lines courtesy of Tony Brar. @TonyBrarOTV Draisaitl - McDavid - Foegele Kane - RNH - Hyman Holloway - McLeod - Brown Erne - Janmark - Ryan
Nurse - Ceci Ekholm - Broberg Kulak - Bouchard Desharnais
Skinner Campbell
Positives Is there a silver lining for either team? We mentioned the play of Warren Foegle. Is that it? Warren Foegle? That’s all we get?
Well, Jacob Markstrom is coming off of a strong performance against St. Louis. 23 year old Joel Hoffer earned his first career shutout, but Markstrom was named first star with 32 saves and a .941 save percentage. Then again, the Oilers seem to be Markstrom’s kryptonite. The 6’6… Swede is 6-9-0 against the Oilers since joining the Flames in 2020-2021. That record is accompanied by a .885 save percentage and a 3.29 goals against average.
We were looking for positivity, weren’t we? Battle of Alberta. Calgary Flames. OK. Got one.
Mikael Backlund The newly appointed Captain tends to show up against the team up the QE2. Last season he had three goals in three games. It’s important to note that all three games were decided by a single goal. The 34 year old may be the difference maker tonight.
With that said, the centre has only three assists and zero goals on the season.
Right, positive vibes. One last try.
Can’t Do Worse Than They Already Have
This seems to be the theme for both teams today, but it rings especially true for the major acquisitions of the 2022 Flames offseason. Nazem Kadri has a decent one goal and one assist in three games against the Oil — and a -1 at even strength of course, but still not bad. Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar both have zero points in the Battle of Alberta. It’s fair to say that the bar is low for those two.
THE BAR IS LOW, PEOPLE.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via nhl.com, naturalstattrick.com and espn.com. Quotes sourced via Sportsnet.