Matthew Tkachuk of the Calgary Flames chases the puck against Cody Ceci of the Edmonton Oilers during Game 1 of the second round of the teams playoff matchup.
Derek Leung / Getty Images
The road to the Stanley Cup goes through one of hockey’s signature rivalries this spring, with the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers going head-to-head in the NHL’s Western Conference semifinals. (The Flames won Game 1 in a wild 9-6 shootout Wednesday night; Game 2 is Friday night in Calgary.) The series won’t just determine who holds the banner for all of Canada in hopes of ending the agonizing 29- years Cup drought, but it represents a fierce clash between provincial neighbors with almost as much history and animosity, on the ice as off.
So, using our Elo ratings, let’s take a tour of the rivalry’s history, tracking the rise and fall – and rise again – of Western Canada’s most bitter enemies.
Although the two franchises started at the same time, they took very different paths to what would eventually become an iconic rivalry. The Oilers first played as a co-founder of the upstart World Hockey Association in 1972 and were then known as the Alberta Oilers, following an early plan (which never materialized) to split home games between Edmonton and Calgary. The team took root explicitly in Edmonton—and changed to a more famous name—from 1973, but still found little success in the WHA…until it bought the rights from a skinny 17-year-old prospect named Wayne Gretzky. With Gretzky leading the way as a rookie in 1978-79, Edmonton nearly won the WHA’s last Avco Cup title and its Oilers were inducted into the NHL when the leagues merged in 1979.
Meanwhile, the Flames were also born in 1972 and started their NHL life in Atlanta’s unconventional hockey market. Though largely forgotten now, the Atlanta Flames had some pretty good seasons in the mid-late 1970s — and in a way they can be seen as an early audition for the NHL’s later, more successful forays into the U.S. South. But when financial losses to the Flames property mounted in 1980, the team was sold to Canadian investors and moved to the Northwest. So it was that the NHL had two franchises in Alberta, destined to fight over the deep cultural divide that has always separated Edmontonians from Calgarians.
The conflict was fierce from the get-go, with one of the most penalty kicks in the rivalry’s history coming in just the second ever Edmonton-Calgary game. The teams avoided confrontation in the playoffs early in their time as neighbors—until 1983 and 1984, that is, when the Oilers eliminated the Flames on their way to the Stanley Cup Finals both years. (Game 7 of the 1984 Division Final was a particularly wild affair, with Calgary taking a 4-3 lead halfway through before Edmonton scored four unanswered goals to advance — a stepping stone on the path to the Oilers’ first Cup. While the two teams were on par in Elo in the early 1980s, Gretzky’s rise and Edmonton’s high-scoring offense gave the Oilers a dynasty — and a clear lead in the Battle of Alberta by the middle of the decade.
But things got more competitive as the Flames started building a strong talent base of their own. Calgary improved from minus-3 in goal difference in 1984 to plus-61 in 1985 thanks to the NHL’s second-best offense, trailing only Edmonton. And when the two teams faced off again in the playoffs in 1986, Oilers defenseman Steve Smith scored an infamous own goal in Game 7—accidentally kicked netminder Grant Fuhr’s skate on a pass from behind the net— giving Calgary the margin to eventually defeat their rivals in the division’s final. (The Flames would go on to lose to Montreal in an all-Canadian Cup final.)
That was a rare mistake for Edmonton: it was the only time from 1984 to 1988 that the Oilers not done win the cup. As much as Calgary improved over the 1980s, Edmonton was usually one step ahead; even when the Flames finished a franchise-best No. 2 in Elo in 1987-88, the Oilers were No. 1. But Gretzky’s shocking departure to Los Angeles in August 1988 changed the rivalry—and the Flames jumped at the opportunity to rivals, closing the decade with the franchise’s first (and for now only) Stanley Cup triumph.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Oilers bounced back from their post-Gretzky decline to start the 1990s, taking advantage of their former captain’s own win (with the LA Kings) over Calgary to then beat Los Angeles in the next round and finally another. Cup to win. For those counting, that meant Edmonton of Calgary had won four consecutive championships and six of the previous seven. The Battle of Alberta was basically the battle for control of the entire NHL.
Little did the teams know that this would be the last Cup for both franchises in three decades and still is. As the NHL’s economy shifted to higher-salary teams in the 1990s—and the US dollar, along with it—the Flames and Oilers fell behind. From 1992-93 through 2002-03, the teams won just two playoff series combined: Edmonton’s pair of unlikely seven-game victories over No. 2 in 1997 (the Dallas Stars) and 1998 (the Colorado Avalanche). But while Oilers goalkeeper Curtis “Cujo” Joseph was brilliant in both setbacks, the decade as a whole was a time of decline and mediocrity in Alberta.
That trend initially continued into the 2000s and bottomed out when neither team made it to the playoffs in 2001-02 – the first time that was true in the rivalry’s history. But every franchise needed a moment of excitement, however brief.
The Flames came first, improving by nearly 20 points in the standings under former (and incidentally current) coach Darryl Sutter in 2003-04. Hall of Fame winger Jarome Iginla finally had the goalkeeper aid – in the form of Miikka Kiprusoff – to enable a deep post-season run, and Calgary even had a 3-2 lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the cup final before he lost a double OT heartthrob at home in Game 6 and another close match in Game 7.
After a lockout torpedoed the entire 2004-05 season — and radically changed the league’s economy once again — Edmonton stood on its own two feet behind the standout play of defender Chris Pronger and journeyman goalie Dwayne Roloson (a former Flame! ). Trailing three-to-one against the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers rallied to force a Game 7, though they lost on the road to the fate of their rivals of to match two years earlier.
During the Battle of Alberta, both competitors were close to winning championships in the mid-2000s. But rather than serve as the prelude to another era of 1980s-style dominance, those cup finals were mostly a mirage. Edmonton would miss each of the next 10 postseasons, and Calgary failed to win another series nearly as long.
Which brings us to the current era of rivalry. The Flames have been one of the most inconsistent teams in the league since the mid-2010s. They oscillate between good and bad seasons due to multiple coaches and an influx of younger talent such as Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm. The Oilers spent most of the 2010s wasting draft picks, making terrible trades, or generally wasting their chances of building around Connor McDavid’s once-in-a-generation talent. .
And yet both franchises have been on the rise lately. Calgary was one of the NHL’s best teams throughout the 2021-22 regular season, with a deep roster, plenty of star power and a rock-solid goalkeeper in Jacob Markstrom. Edmonton got his typical 1-2 superstar punch from McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but the Oilers also finished the regular season as the best stretch-run team in the league according to Elo. In that sense, both clubs were in the top three in goal difference in the second half of the program. These teams were in good form for their first play-off meeting since 1991, despite both taking seven games to send lower-ranked opponents into Round 1, and it showed with a total of 15 goals in Game 1.
After Calgary’s win, our model gives the Flames a 69 percent chance to win the series and advance to the Western Conference finals. But if the history between these teams is any indication, anything can happen from now on. In many ways, this series has been decades in the making — and not just because of the cartoonish, 80s-style rift of the opener. Although Alberta is no longer the center of the hockey universe it once was, the path to the Stanley Cup still runs through the province. And that means this rivalry is officially back as one of hockey’s best.
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