Oilers-Flames Battle of Alberta takes Calgary stage before NHL breaks for Olympics

The Edmonton Oilers are hoping to head into the Olympic break on a winning note in Calgary Wednesday night.

Wednesday night’s Battle of Alberta will see which side will get over its Toront-woe first.

Both the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames fell victim to the Toronto Maple Leafs in each of the Alberta teams’ previous games, the Oilers 5-2 losers on Tuesday and the Flames 4-2 failures on Monday.

The Leafs won in different fashions at Edmonton’s Rogers Place and at Calgary’s Saddledome.

They scored twice on an early third-period five-on-three power play to break a 2-2 deadlock over the Oilers (28-21-8) and coasted to victory over the Flames after taking a 3-0 lead.

For the Oilers, the two Toronto power-play goals came on the only two penalties Edmonton took all game, the latest stumble in what was a brutal special-teams performance over the eight-game homestand that ended with Tuesday’s loss: a 65.2-per-cent success rate, third-worst in the National Hockey League. The Oilers sit 23rd in the NHL this season on the penalty-kill at 77.7 per cent.

“If you go through funks, it’s got to be short; you can’t prolong it,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch told reporters after Tuesday’s game, adding he thinks the team has been missing the presence of the injured Adam Henrique, who is often on the ice in shorthanded situations and on faceoffs. “I can’t say exactly what the issues are.”

The head coach of the Flames (22-27-6), losers of six of their last seven games, says his team played a good game overall against the Maple Leafs but “gifted” their opponents two of their early goals and got unlucky with a trio of close scoring chances in the third period.

“Other than that, I thought we were deserving of a little better fate than what we got,” Ryan Huska said after Monday’s game.

The Flames, like the Oilers, have been enjoying a long stretch of home games since mid-January, playing eight of the nine games at the Saddledome before the NHL takes a break for the Olympics.

The teams return to action in three weeks, the Oilers on the road in Anaheim on Feb. 25 and the Flames the next day in San Jose as each team starts a three-game road trip to California.

Projected Oilers lineup

Forward

• Ryan Nugent-Hopkins • Connor McDavid • Zach Hyman
• Vasily Podkolzin • Leon Draisaitl • Kasperi Kapanen
• Matt Savoie • Josh Samanski • Jack Roslovic
• Andrew Mangiapane • Mattias Janmark • Trent Frederic

Defence

• Mattias Ekholm • Evan Bouchard
• Darnell Nurse • Jake Walman
• Spencer Stastney • Ty Emberson

Goal

• Tristan Jarry • Connor Ingram

Projected Flames lineup

Forward

• Yegor Sharangovich • Mikael Backlund • Matt Coronato
• Connor Zary • Nazem Kadri • Joel Farabee
• Jonathan Huberdeau • Morgan Frost • Matvei Gridin
• Ryan Lomberg • Martin Pospisil • Adam Klapka

Defence

• Yan Kuznetsov • Mackenzie Weegar
• Kevin Bahl • Zach Whitecloud
• Joel Hanley • Zayne Parekh

Goal

• Devin Cooley • Dustin Wolf