This clip is 4:46. It’s in real time with no cuts and contains 4 goals and every replay.
— Tim and Friends (@timandfriends) May 27, 2022
The #BattleOfAlberta is everything we hoped for and more#StanleyCup #LetsGoOilers #Flames pic.twitter.com/eRDQyyqPiC
Fastest 4 goals in a NHL playoff game (Game 5). The Calgary Flames scored 2 goals in 51 seconds in Game 1, a new playoff record for shortest amount of time. A lot of fastest in the 2022 version of the Battle of Alberta. Game 1 gave us flashbacks to a pre-Gary Bettman NHL era.
We love to preach secondary scoring and the Edmonton Oilers delivered. Evander Kane, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Leon Draisaitl has been consistent. Connor McDavid: assists extraordinaire yet scored the game-winning goal in overtime in Game 5, goal #7 for the postseason.
McDavid and Draisaitl each have 26 points in this postseason.
The Calgary Flames, with their incredible 40-goal scorers top line of Johnny Gaudreau, Elias Lindholm, and Matthew Tkachuk, came up short after the first period of Game 1.
The Oilers were playing at a different speed in this series, winning over the Flames in 5 games.
IT JUST HAD TO BE HIM! 😱
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 27, 2022
Connor McDavid's @SUBWAYCanada OT winner seals the deal for the @EdmontonOilers! 👏#StanleyCup | #BattleOfAlberta | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/bwYDHpO8Ot
The Edmonton Oilers will play the Colorado Avalanche in the "Campbell" final. The Avs defeated the St. Louis Blues in 6 games. Colorado has home-ice advantage in the series.
Edmonton went 1-2 against Colorado. The Avs won 3-2 (OT) on March 21 in Denver. Colorado won 2-1 on April 9 in Edmonton. The Oilers won 6-3 at home on April 22.
No one has scored more than 15 goals in one #StanleyCup playoffs over the last 25 years (Sidney Crosby, 2009, and Alex Ovechkin, 2018).
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 25, 2022
Evander Kane currently has 12 for the #oilers and he's still in the second round.
We talked secondary scoring. Evander Kane didn't start out the season with Edmonton. Kane has had 2 hat tricks in the postseason with a natural hat trick in Game 3. Zach Hyman, in his first season with Edmonton, has 8 goals in this postseason (11 games) vs. 5 goals in 23 playoff games with Toronto.
Leon Draisaitl had 16 points in the series, the most in a Battle of Alberta and breaking Wayne Gretzky's record of 14 from 1983.
Edmonton has now won 5 of the 6 playoff versions of the Battle of Alberta. The Oilers beat Calgary in 1984 and 1988 on their way to winning the Stanley Cup.
- 1983 Edmonton 4–1
- 1984 Edmonton 4–3
- 1986 Calgary 4–3
- 1988 Edmonton 4–0
- 1991 Edmonton 4–3
- 2022 Edmonton 4–1
Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators got some screen time, rooting on his brother Matthew Tkachuk, who plays for Calgary. Maybe brother Matthew can return the favour or even have a Stanley Cup final with the brothers on the ice.
HELLO?!?!?!#StanleyCup | #BattleofAlberta | #Flames pic.twitter.com/5ESr1mTxLK
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 25, 2022
ESPN has had good NHL coverage in many ways, steps up from NBCSN. Frustrating exceptions are replays and missed angles. The Rasmus Andersson 132-foot wild goal on Mike Smith in Game 4 is a great example. The ESPN coverage barely showed the path of the goal and only from behind Smith.
Rogers Sportsnet had an ice-level replay from behind Andersson that showed how wild the goal was. ESPN would seemingly have access to that angle but the network doesn't emphasize replays the way other networks do in covering hockey.
2022 NHL Stanley Cup notebook: Battle of Alberta is back after 31 years
We saw Garry Galley jump in on Game 4 in the Florida series for CBC and Rogers Sportsnet. Craig Simpson was under the weather for Game 5. Sportsnet went with regular Flames colour analyst Kelly Hrudey along with Chris Cuthbert. Flames fans would note that Simpson played for Edmonton in the era of the classic Battle of Alberta series.
Cuthbert/Simpson/Kyle Bukauskas will cover the Edmonton series. Harnarayan Singh and Louie DeBrusk with David Amber will call the Eastern final. CBC will carry every single game of both conference finals. This is not scheduled to apply in Ontario for Game 2 of the Oilers series since CBC will cover the Ontario election.
Sportsnet is flipping people in and out of the coverage. We imagine Scott Oake will be involved in the Stanley Cup final.
Chris Cuthbert gives us CFL references in the high scoring Game 1. John Buccigross tell the U.S. audience that Calgary and Edmonton are like Boston and New York since the distance is comparable. No, it isn't. Being in the same province is a lot different than the dynamic of different states. Also, the rivalry of Calgary and Edmonton is tied to everything, not just sports.
The young woman for SportsCenter after Game 1 said the "battle for Alberta." No, "of" not "for."
This is the complaint with parachuting people into a series. ESPN didn't carry Calgary in the regular season and not a single game on Canadian soil. The network gave the U.S. viewers in Round 1 voices who understood the significance: Gord Miller, Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Dominic Moore, Leah Hextall.
Buccigross and Brian Boucher don't understand the rivalry and aren't really that interested. Bob Wischusen was a step up from Buccigross. Miller wasn't available. Campbell-Pascall is tied to the Calgary Flames. Hextall is the ice-level reporter.
The intermission crew featured Steve Levy and Kevin Weekes. Weekes covered the Battle of Alberta for CBC with Mark Lee. Levy has a better sense of these things than Buccigross. Levy, Weekes, and Hextall would have said, "ESPN takes this pretty seriously."
2022 NHL Stanley Cup notebook: How ESPN and TNT are covering Canadian teams
ESPN has the first pick for which conference final to cover. Very strong money has them picking the East final. The Edmonton series may have more scoring but the East final will have earlier starting times and likely better ratings as a result.
If that happens, the Edmonton series will draw TNT's top team of Kenny Albert, Eddie Olczyk, and Keith Jones. Their only experience with Canadian teams in the NHL playoffs has been Game 7 of the Toronto Maple Leafs series.
Albert was in the Edmonton bubble in 2020 for NBCSN. TNT carried 5 Edmonton games during the regular season, 3 of them at Rogers Place.
If ESPN doesn't go in that direction, Ray Ferraro will call a series with a Canadian team.
May 31 Edmonton @ Colorado, 8p Kenny Albert/Eddie Olczyk/Keith Jones/Nabil Karim
June 2 Edmonton @ Colorado, 8p Kenny Albert/Eddie Olczyk/Keith Jones/Nabil Karim
June 4 Colorado @ Edmonton, 8p Kenny Albert/Keith Jones/Darren Pang/Meaghan Mikkelson
June 6 Colorado @ Edmonton, 8p Kenny Albert/Keith Jones/Darren Pang/Meaghan Mikkelson
We should give an award to the best Canadian NHL team each season
The Edmonton Oilers automatically becomes the best Canadian NHL team of the 2021-2022 season.
We came up with the idea (unofficially the Dion Phaneuf award) to give an award to the Canadian team that finished the deepest in the Stanley Cup playoffs or the best regular season record if there are no playoff teams.
The Montréal Canadiens won last year's crown for winning the North Division and reaching the Stanley Cup final.
2022 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs preview for Canadian teams
2022 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs scoreboard
An all-Canadian series out west still drew rather well on U.S. television with the ESPN family. Game 2 drew 1.090 million, Game 3 had 940,000 viewers and Game 1 had 894,000 viewers. Game 5 drew 1.169 million for ESPN.
CanadianCrossing.com NHL coverage
We will update this file with any announcer changes and the like.
Twitter captures: @timandfriends; @Sportsnet; @reporterchris; @Sportsnet
photo credit: CBC Sports/Sportsnet/NHL
Comments