For the first time in a long time NHL teams got three full days off from practice or games at Christmas. What will it produce on the ice Friday as teams return?<\/p>\n
In Alberta, as the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers clash for the third time this season, it will be a challenge, matching the drama provided in the first two contests between the rivals.<\/p>\n
In past seasons, NHL clubs got two days off over Christmas. However, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement says the players get an extra day, Dec. 26, away from their teams.<\/p>\n
Morning skates on Friday are the only on-ice prep for a return to action.<\/p>\n
Friday evening in Calgary, the Flames and Oilers both having a win in previous games in the Battle of Alberta with both providing excitement to the end before the home team succumbed.<\/p>\n
The last meeting, Dec.7 in Edmonton, went to overtime. The Flames nurtured a 1-0 lead for 43 minutes and 50 seconds in that one before the Oilers’ Taylor Hall tied the contest with 10 seconds remaining. The Flames regrouped and won 2-1 in OT when Jiri Hudler scored at 3:14 of extra time.<\/p>\n
On Nov.16 in Calgary, the Flames led for 31 minutes and 17 seconds having built a 2-0 lead then the Oilers struck for three goals in 6:42 grabbing the lead and then adding an empty-net goal for a 4-2 victory.<\/p>\n
In both games, the winning side played night prior. This time both teams will be well rested although the rival coaches likely would have preferred a practice day after the players enjoyed the holiday respite.<\/p>\n
Both teams won to end losing streaks on Dec. 23 before the pause in action. The Oilers won for the first time in seven games downing Winnipeg convincingly, 6-2. The Flames rallied from a two-goal third period deficit to win 4-3 in a Shootout over St. Louis ending a four-game losing run.<\/p>\n
The results left the provincial rivals at the bottom of the Western Conference standings with the reputed over-achieving Flames having seven more points while having played two less games than the reputed under-achieving Oilers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Battle of Alberta resumes on Friday for the third time this season, but this time both the Flames and Oilers will be well rested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":1115793,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","disable_ec_suggest":"","writethru_meta":""},"categories":[1422],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1115795","sn-article","type-sn-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1422"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sn-article\/1115795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sn-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sn-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sn-article\/1115795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1115805,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sn-article\/1115795\/revisions\/1115805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1115793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115795"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1115795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}