Following three days off for Christmas, the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames were back at it again last night. This time, the contest took place down the Queen Elizabeth II Highway in Calgary. A major question would be whether the Oilers could match the same intensity level as what they showed at home on Tuesday. The Oilers had won seven straight Saddledome games before last night, at least.
However, Edmonton has struggled mightily with three-day breaks before. Trying to win three games in a row for the first time all year, the goal would be to avoid the same struggles. That objective is always easier said than done, though.
Case in point, the Flames got the first goal of the game. And we know how the Oilers are with other teams getting the first goal of the game. They can’t quite author and complete comebacks like they used to, even if the Buffalo game almost qualified. Calgary got another one, and then potted some insurance in the third that it turns out they indeed needed. Dustin Wolf did the rest, snuffing out any potential tying goal and making it look relatively easy in the process.
Oilers lose 3–2.
The “winning streak” curse will continue until morale improves. You thought it had improved with an 8–2–1 stretch over the last 11 before Christmas, but it somehow hasn’t yet. Here’s the game story.
Slow starts are something this year’s Oilers can’t recover from
One thing has been a fact about the 2025–26 Edmonton Oilers. If they score first, they can put together a solid win. If they don’t score first, well… trouble is abound. Even if they rally to tie it, they’ll find a way to be stuck with the single loser point at the end of the night.
Yegor Sharangovich decided to put that to the test once again. He hasn’t been having the greatest season so far, even winding up in the Flames’ bottom-six. But he still scored 30 goals one season with lethal shots like this.
Note the shots on goal at this point. Sharangovich’s goal gave Calgary a commanding 8–1 edge in shots-on-goal, seven minutes into the game. Not nearly a good enough start against your forever rival.
Slow starts have cost the Oilers too many times this season. This game is just another one on the list of “show up on time, and the game could have broken your way instead of theirs.” Nobody gave them that alarm clock that this observer suggested getting them for Christmas. But they did get other things.
Simple mistakes did them in ultimately
The Oilers did at least start trying after the opening strike, and they would find a tying goal later in the first period. Naturally, it would be a power play, giving Edmonton the juice they needed. Evan Bouchard ties the game with a signature Bouch’ Bomb, and the post might still be ringing after that shot.
So forget about the slow start; it’s even now. Just play a solid 50 minutes, and you can come away with a win. That’s all that had to happen.
A second-period defensive zone turnover should not have happened, but that’s what we got anyway. Ryan Lomberg, who apparently is already a major Pizza 73 fan (can’t blame him), was the beneficiary. That’s poetic in a way, since this was an absolute pizza of a turnover, with all the toppings included.
The third Flames goal didn’t involve a turnover, but rather, another instance of absent-minded play. On an odd-man rush into your zone, a defenceman’s job is to take away the passing lanes and let the goaltender handle the shooter. Bouchard initially does so, even as Mattias Ekholm is hustling back.
Blake Coleman gets involved and plays a give-and-go with longtime Flame Mikael Backlund. Either after Backlund first passes it to Coleman, or after Coleman returns favour, Bouchard needs to commit to guarding the player who just passed. He makes no such commitment, allowing Backlund to give it back to Coleman for the shot and goal.
Those simple mistakes can’t keep happening. If they’re killing you in a late-December contest, they certainly won’t help out in the playoffs. Smarter hockey than those two examples has to be played.
This was a game of two solid goalies, and Wolf was better
It’s difficult to put this loss on Connor Ingram, at the very least. Not only had Ingram been solid in winning two games before this, but he also began his NHL renaissance with a GAA under two and a save percentage of .920. For someone who was basically an insurance policy for Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, he’s been a darn good one.
None of the three goals against in this one were ones Ingram should have had. Maybe you want him to have the Sharangovich tally, but the other two featured very subpar defence. In some regard, he was hung out to dry.
For all those trials and tribulations, Ingram still stopped 29 of 32 shots, for a .906 save percentage. Which is all you ask of your supposed backup, on a given night. The way Ingram has played, he might be the starter right now. Just keep giving him run support, like we know you can, Oilers.
At least McDavid extended his points streak
Deep into the third period, after Calgary had made it a 3–1 game, the Oilers at least got some life injected into them. Connor McDavid would take a scramble rebound and tap it past Wolf for his 23rd goal of the season. This tally extended his points streak to 12 games; over that stretch, he has 13 goals and 32 points.
Ultimately, he, Leon Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman couldn’t find a tying goal, nor could anyone else. And it would have been nice to have had this earlier in the game. But McDavid at least arrived in this one, which is not something that can be said about every Oiler who dressed. And then he made an appearance on After Hours to boot.
This was McDavid’s fourth all-time appearance on After Hours. They’ve all been really solid.
Player perspective
Coming out of three days off, we wanted to have a little better start than we did, but I thought as the game went on, we got better.
Evan Bouchard
On the one warm Edmonton day, the Oilers are playing elsewhere
At the time of writing this, it is minus-28 with a wind chill of minus-34 outside. (For the Fahrenheit folks, the numbers are only a smidge better than those.) In less than 48 hours, Edmonton will reach a forecast high of two degrees above zero, an entire 30 degrees warmer than presently. It would be an absolutely perfect late-December day to go catch a hockey game.
Hockey, however, is not going on at Rogers Place. The junior Oil Kings play today, and tomorrow the Oilers have to go all the way out to Manitoba for a date with the Winnipeg Jets. It will still be worth going out and about, since the game will be the second of three Amazon Prime games the Oilers will be featured in this season. If you don’t have Amazon Prime, perfect time to hit up an establishment that will.
