The Edmonton Oilers may not have won the Stanley Cup this season, but there are still lots of positives to take out of the campaign as a whole. The main one being that for the last two seasons, the team has lost in the playoffs to the eventual Stanley Cup winner. At first it was in a sweep to the Colorado Avalanche, and this season was a second round bow out to the Vegas Golden Knights.
It’s a good bet to say the Oilers’ time is coming.
The other positive to take out of this season is that it doesn’t look like they have to worry too much about their Albertan neighbours being much of a threat moving forward. After a disastrous season that ended in missing the playoffs, the Calgary Flames look to be headed towards a roster implosion—something that the Oilers and their fans surely take a lot of joy in witnessing. Two teams heading in completely opposite directions: Edmonton heading up (the QEII), Calgary heading down (the QEII).
What is even more comical is that the Oilers may actually be the contributing factor behind the Flames reaching rebuilding status. The timeline doesn’t lie.
The 2022 playoffs
Despite the Flames having home ice and a better record entering their second round series, the Oilers simply had Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Although trailing in almost every game, the Oilers always found a way to come back. This led to just a five-game series, with McDavid sealing the Flames fate with an overtime winner on Calgary ice.
The Oilers clearly wanted to beat their provincial rivals—and badly. Reports had been made that the Oilers did whatever they could to take Matthew Tkachuk out of the series, which they easily did. But yesterday Elliotte Friedman reported on The Jeff Marek Show that it was even more than that:
For those that cannot listen, Friedman noted the following after being asked if the Oilers broke the Flames:
“Last season I was talking about that series with a member of the Oilers…when the Oilers were winning that series that became a bit of a rallying cry for them. That they knew if they won the series, they could possibly break up the Flames.”
– Elliotte Friedman (The Jeff Marek Show)
Imagine thinking, and then speaking into reality, that a series win could decimate your biggest rivals present and future. But it really did happen.
The results
Since then, the Flames have gone through a ridiculous amount of change. Our friends at The Win Column put together a detailed piece of the last twelve months and just how awful it has been, and that was even before the events of the past few days.
The TL;DR version of the story was that the Flames lost their best player in Johnny Gaureau for nothing, were forced to trade away their other best player in Matthew Tkachuk and watch him blossom into a Hart Trophy nominee, gave up assets and cap space for replacement-level players, watched some of their other best players crater in terms of on-ice performances, and had another season where they were too bad for the playoffs but not bad enough to warrant a shot at the draft lottery.
The news that Elias Lindholm, Noah Hanifin, Mikael Backlund, and Tyler Toffoli are all leaning towards not re-signing with the team is almost pure comedy at this stage. The Flames are simply cursed, and the Oilers may have been the ones to cast the spell.
Too bad, so sad
It’s pretty clear that the Oiler’s drive to potentially break up the Flames worked in glorious fashion. In fact, I don’t think anyone would have anticipated that McDavid’s overtime winner would send the Flames into rebuilding territory just one year later.
That rearview mirror is looking awful toasty.
