Flames, Oilers push toward playoffs after surreal Battle of Alberta

CALGARY -- Matthew Tkachuk found a 9-5 victory for the Calgary Flames against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday so odd, so bizarre, he could barely make sense of it.

"I thought the craziest part was I looked at the clock and it was 6-5 and there was, like, 10 minutes left in the second period or whatever it was," Tkachuk said.
After a four-point game (two goals, two assists) against the Oilers, the Flames forward wanted to continue his comment and picked up a game summary sheet on the table in front of him in the interview room. One glance at all the ink on the page caused him to drop it like a hot potato.
"There's too much on this, I can't even read it," Tkachuk said, grimacing.
Such was the fourth and final Battle of Alberta of the season. So many things did not compute in terms of an urgent, late-season game between the provincial rivals on course to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The teams played a tight game 19 days ago, a 3-1 Calgary win. Since then, Edmonton had gone 6-1-1 and Calgary 5-3-1.
But in this one, the Flames' top line of Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau (five assists) and Elias Lindholm (two goals) combined for 11 points and each was plus-4.
"I still think the big line (Lindholm, Tkachuk and Gaudreau) was the difference, that got us ahead always or got the big goal always," Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. "Even when they scored on the first shift, pretty easy for the experts to say, 'What happened?' But who scored the next goal? It was [Lindholm's] line, right?
"They had a big night and they've been good 5-on-5 all year. There is something to be said for the difference between goals for and goals against when you're on the ice."

The goaltending wasn't necessarily poor, given the number of quality chances each way. And it was Calgary's Jacob Markstrom who authored a turning point when he stopped Edmonton's Evander Kane on a 3-on-1 break caused by a dreadful Calgary change at 2:37 of the third period.
Eighteen seconds later, Lindholm scored to increase Calgary's lead to 7-5.
"I told [Markstrom] after … that's the difference," Sutter said. "There are lots of goalies where the coach is going to yank him or where the goalie doesn't play very good after that. So the difference in a lot of teams are big saves and bad goals."
Sutter had two items from the game that didn't fit for him.
One was the suggestion that the game resembled a Battle of Alberta encounter from the 1980s, when scoring was more prevalent with the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri on one side and Joe Nieuwendyk and Hakan Loob on the other.
"Nah, there would have been fights and a lot more hits, for sure," Sutter said.
Sutter also had difficulty processing all the hats that came raining down on the Scotiabank Saddledome ice when Edmonton forward Leon Draisaitl completed his hat trick at 9:18 of the second period.
"The only thing I didn't like was all them black hats that thrown on the ice," Sutter said. "Must have been a giveaway in Leduc (which is near Edmonton) or something."
Draisaitl was equally unimpressed, even though he tied Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews in the race for the Rocket Richard Trophy with 47 goals.
"Doesn't matter," Draisaitl said. "You can't lose nine whatever.
"You can't give up nine goals, it doesn't matter against who. You're never going to win a game in the NHL if you give up nine. So we can talk all we want, it's not good enough. Top to bottom. It starts with me and our leadership group."
Edmonton (36-25-5) is third in the Pacific Division, four points behind the Los Angeles Kings, but is trying to fend off the Vegas Golden Knights (one point back) and Vancouver Canucks (four points back), who could drag them down into the race for the two wild card spots in the Western Conference.
Until Saturday, the Oilers were making strides under new coach Jay Woodcroft since he replaced Dave Tippett on Feb. 10. Their 5-on-5 play had been a weakness, having been outscored 100-88 under Tippett. In their first 21 games under Woodcroft, they outscored opponents 49-36.
Calgary had a 9-2 advantage in 5-on-5 goals Saturday.
"We've spent the last five weeks or so trying to improve certain areas of our game and I thought we got away from it tonight and we paid the price," said Woodcroft, 13-7-2 since he took over. "That stings. We came into the Calgary Saddledome (against) a team that doesn't hardly give up anything. We scored five goals. That should be enough to win a game. But tonight, it wasn't about what we got. It was about what we gave them."
Each team was looking ahead after the high-event game in Calgary. Though the win helped the Flames maintain a seven-point lead on the Kings in the Pacific, the celebration won't last long.
"I look at it as we won the game and move on," Gaudreau said. "We have a really tough week coming up here. We have Colorado (on Tuesday), St. Louis (on Saturday) and L.A (on Thursday). A huge week this week against three really good teams coming up here."
Edmonton returns home to play the Arizona Coyotes on Monday (9:30 p.m. ET; SN1, SNW, BSAZ, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
"I'm pretty confident will be better (Monday)," Draisaitl said.
"It's a one-off," Edmonton forward Zach Hyman said. "You remember it. You learn from it. We'll play these guys again and we'll regroup from it. We didn't play well to a man. It's hard to find someone who had a good game. It was just poor all around and we'll regroup."