{"id":369835,"date":"2025-12-22T17:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/369835\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T17:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:37:10","slug":"flames-oilers-holiday-doubleheader-thats-a-christmas-present-in-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/369835\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames-Oilers holiday doubleheader? \u2018That\u2019s a Christmas present in itself\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back-to-back instalments of the Battle of Alberta, a home-and-home on either side of the holiday break?<\/p>\n

Yup, the NHL\u2019s schedule-makers got this one right.<\/p>\n

The Calgary Flames<\/a> and Edmonton Oilers<\/a> renew hostilities Tuesday at Rogers Place, then rematch on Saturday at the Saddledome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a Christmas present in itself,\u201d beamed Flames forward Ryan Lomberg. \u201cMy son was asking me about our schedule after the Christmas break and I told him it\u2019s the Oilers and he said, \u2018Well, we play them before.\u2019 I said, \u2018We get \u2019em both, buddy. We get \u2019em both \u2014 one there and one here.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

His reaction?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, he\u2019s excited,\u201d Lomberg replied with a wide smile. \u201cHe loves the Battle of Alberta. Obviously, they have two of the best players in the world, so it\u2019s cautiously excited. But yeah, it\u2019s going to be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who doesn\u2019t love the Battle of Alberta?<\/p>\n

The Flames faithful were already getting in the mood Saturday. Toward the end of a 6-3 home victory over the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>, which included an epic shift where Lomberg scored a goal and then dropped the mitts at the ensuing faceoff, the Saddledome crowd started an \u2018Oilers suck!\u2019 chant.<\/p>\n

After an early faceplant, highlighted only by a shootout triumph over their provincial foes on opening night, the Flames have found another gear of late. Over their past 15 games, they\u2019re 10-4-1.<\/p>\n

Their northern neighbours have also been gaining momentum, although their new No. 1 netminder is now on the shelf until the new year.<\/p>\n

The Oilers own a spiffy 7-2-1 record in their past 10 or, if you prefer to go by an identical measure, are 9-4-2 over a 15-game span. They are suddenly just two points out of top spot in the Pacific Division.<\/p>\n

Connor McDavid has now vaulted to the top of the NHL\u2019s scoring race, while Leon Draisaitl sits fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re playing good hockey right now, and we feel like we\u2019re playing good hockey right now,\u201d said Flames forward and shorthanded sniper Blake Coleman. \u201cSo it should be entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re going to get the best out of the other guys over there and you\u2019re going to get the best from our team, as well,\u201d added defenceman MacKenzie Weegar, who had a milestone night Saturday with his 200th career assist. \u201cIt\u2019s always exciting, the Battle of Alberta. You hear the noise around the cities and all the chirps and the excitement. The players love it. The media loves it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a good game going into the holidays. And I know a lot of guys like the holidays here, so we\u2019ve gotta have a big game going into Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

Not including the bubbled campaign, the Flames and Oilers haven\u2019t hooked up for a pair of regular-season showdowns in such a short span since Jan. 29 and Feb. 1 of 2020.<\/p>\n

And while there will be a chance for revenge Saturday, when supporters in both red and blue will be debuting whatever merch was under the tree, the squad that prevails Tuesday will enjoy their eggnog and shortbreads a little bit more.<\/p>\n

NHL teams are not permitted to meet, practise or travel between Dec. 24-26.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re sitting around for three or four days, it\u2019s a lot better when you\u2019re thinking about how good of a team you are and the possibilities of what could be if you piece things together,\u201d Lomberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost, I don\u2019t want to say the opposite but if you lose going into the break, you\u2019re a little bit more stressed. You want to right the ship right away and those days are long when you can\u2019t do anything \u2014 no practice, no skating, no games.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sit there and just think, and it\u2019s a lot better when your thoughts are positive and encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lot better, surely, if you\u2019re thinking about completing a Battle of Alberta holiday sweep.<\/p>\n

The Flames have lately managed to climb a few pegs from dead-last to 28th overall. While fans will be begging Santa for some draft lottery luck, the coaches and players are focused on salvaging this season.<\/p>\n

With a positive result against their arch-rivals, they\u2019d sled into Christmas on a three-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I do a pretty good job of separating life and hockey, but it\u2019s more when you first get back to the rink, you\u2019re quickly reminded of where you\u2019re at,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cSo that last game, it\u2019s nice to go into it with a win. And then when you come back, it\u2019s nice to be like, \u2018Oh yeah, we did take care of business and we\u2019re in a better spot because of that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to go into the break feeling good about our position in the race. And three wins would go a lot further, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

wgilbertson@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back-to-back instalments of the Battle of Alberta, a home-and-home on either side of the holiday break? Yup, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[22640,8157,3325,26,5461,155,504,198,146,5300,896,5,4812,370,2339,4,24,3591,8156,3318,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-369835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-battle-of-alberta","9":"tag-blake-coleman","10":"tag-brayden-pachal","11":"tag-calgary-flames","12":"tag-christmas","13":"tag-connor-mcdavid","14":"tag-dustin-wolf","15":"tag-edmonton","16":"tag-edmonton-oilers","17":"tag-edmontonoilers","18":"tag-flames","19":"tag-hockey","20":"tag-kasperi-kapanen","21":"tag-leon-draisaitl","22":"tag-mackenzie-weegar","23":"tag-nhl","24":"tag-oilers","25":"tag-rogers-place","26":"tag-ryan-lomberg","27":"tag-the-flames","28":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115764438442870760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}