Game Notes: Edmonton Oilers @ Calgary Flames — Game 42

After winning back-to-back games against the Ottawa Senators, the Oilers will head to Calgary for a Hockey Night in Canada version of the Battle of Alberta.

1. The Oilers are quietly one of the hottest teams in the league right now. Over their past 10 games, Edmonton has just one regulation loss, which was the 4-0 shutout at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens which came when the Oilers were on the second leg of a back-to-back and the Habs had been off for over a week. This stretch has seen the Oilers go 7-2-1 with wins over the other two top teams in the Canadian Division, Toronto and the Winnipeg Jets. The thorn in Edmonton’s side as of late has been the Habs, who account for two of those three aforementioned losses.

2. The Flames, on the other hand, are one of the coldest teams in the league right now. Back on March 15, the Flames beat the Oilers by a score of 4-3. That win pushed Calgary to just five points behind the Oilers in the standings. Two nights later, the Oilers pounded the Flames by a score of 7-3. Since then? The Flames have won just two of 10 games. They’re now 17 points back of the Oilers in the standings. They’re only five points up on Ottawa for dead last in the Canadian Division.

3. Bringing back Darryl Sutter hasn’t worked out for the Flames at all. Back when he was hired, I wrote in a game notes post that Calgary was hoping he could have the same effect on the team that he did with the L.A. Kings back in 2011. The Kings were 15-14-4 when Sutter was hired and they went 25-13-11 the rest of the way, finished eighth in the Western Conference, and bombed their way through and won the Stanley Cup.

4. It looked for a minute right off the hop that Sutter had helped turn things around for the Flames. They won his first three games behind the bench, back-to-back wins over Montreal and then that aforementioned 4-3 win over Edmonton, but they’ve completely imploded since then. All told, Sutter’s Flames are 5-9-0.

5. Pre-Sutter, the Flames were scoring 2.34 goals-per-60 at even strength and they were allowing 2.39 goals-against-per-60. Both figures were slightly below league average but the Flames were essentially a team that broke even at 5-on-5. The plan with Sutter Hockey is to tighten things up defensively and play a high puck-possession game, like the boring-but-effective Kings of the early-to-mid-2010s. The hope was that while the offence might dry up a bit, the Flames would become very difficult to score on and that would be their strength.

Well, the offence has dried up, as Calgary is now scoring 2.11 goals-per-60, but the whole ‘difficult to score on’ thing hasn’t happened. The Flames are now allowing 2.99 goals-against-per-60.

6. Is that a Sutter thing? The Flames’ underlying numbers with Sutter behind the bench have actually improved, as they have the sixth-best expected goals against figure over the past month, but it hasn’t resulted in any kind of success. Jacob Markstrom owns a .866 save percentage in his last eight outings and David Rittich has a .900 save percentage in his last six. Those Kings teams were known for their strong goaltending from Jonathan Quick and a revolving door of backups, but neither Markstrom nor Rittich have been anywhere near good with Sutter.

7. And then, of course, there’s the offence, which has predictably dried up a little bit. In 14 games with Sutter behind the bench, the Flames have scored three or more goals in a game just three times. One was the 4-3 win over Edmonton, one was a 4-2 win over the Jets, and one was a 4-3 win over the Leafs in which a wobbly, injured Freddy Andersen only made 14 saves. In six of 14 Sutter games, the Flames have scored either one or zero goals.

8. So, yeah, long story short, things haven’t gone well for the Flames in the second Sutter era. The Flames are eight points back of Montreal for the fourth and final playoff spot in Canada and the Habs have three games in hand. With 16 games left, it’s difficult to imagine Calgary can sneak into the playoffs, so we can pretty comfortably stick a fork in them. That said, the Flames can still play spoiler for the Oilers this year. There are three more Battle of Alberta games left and the Oilers need to win them in order to stay ahead of Montreal and finish ahead of the Jets so they can have home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. It’s not much, but it’s something for Calgary to play for.

9. The Oilers have owned the Battle of Alberta so far this year. They’ve won five of the seven meetings thus far and two of those wins were spankings, 7-1 and 7-3 in favour of Edmonton. If the Flames win the remaining three games they can earn a split in the season series.

10. Elsewhere, this might be the last Oilers game we watch for a little while. Edmonton is scheduled to host the Vancouver Canucks on Monday and Wedensday but, as we know, virtually their entire team and staff have tested positive for COVID-19. The NHL is apparently planning to get the Canucks rolling again late next week, but that isn’t a guarantee. Even if the Canucks are able to get going as the league hopes, the Monday and Wednesday games against the Oilers will be postponed. That means, barring some other shuffling, Edmonton’s next game would be next Saturday against the Jets.