Lanny McDonald chases Edmonton Oilers star Wayne Gretzky.
In an Oilers uniform, Fuhr had good success against the Flames with a 21-15-9 regular-season record, 15-10 in the playoffs. Every game was special, he recalls, mostly for the intensity, and he expects that dial to be turned way up come opening face-off Wednesday, a flashback to the days when he was in the heat of the action.
"It'll probably turn into a physical series," Fuhr said. "I don't think I've seen a Battle of Alberta that isn't. There's going to be meanness to it and the team that's going to push through that will move on."
Each goaltender, Fuhr says, can expect traffic, and plenty of it.
"All of our games were going to be mean and nasty, it was going to be fun around the crease," he recalled with a laugh. "You just prepared for everybody and everything when you played Calgary. Lanny could shoot the puck, a natural goal-scorer. They had Joey Mullen for a while, Hakan Loob, Dougie Gilmour. Dougie spent a lot of time in front of me."
With the Flames, McDonald had good numbers against the Oilers: 42 points (25 goals, 17 assists) in 53 games, and 24 points (10 goals, 14 assists) in 22 postseason games.