Anytime you win a divisional game, it's huge.
When it's against the Oilers, it's kicked up another notch.
When you accomplish the first two while skating in Edmonton in their barn, it's the cherry on top of one sweet night.
However, following practice Saturday at Winsport the Flames weren't revelling in their 5-1 drubbing of the Oilers Friday night in the provincial capital.
They enjoyed it, the two points were huge - but they were already looking ahead to the upcoming business at hand.
"Up-tempo practice," said Matthew Tkachuk after getting off the ice. "I mean, mood's how it should be - not too high, not too low. It was a good win but, I mean, it wasn't like it was a season-on-the-line type of game ... we want to have the mentality that we know we can go in there and win those games. We're confident and it's almost just another game."
It was the first of five meetings between the two rivals, which are jockeying for position atop the Pacific Division standings.
Andrew Mangiapane scored just 11 seconds into the tilt to stun the homecrowd.
Tkachuk - whose hard work helped led to Mangiapane's tally - then scored at 11:39 to make it 2-0.
Connor McDavidgot the Oil on the board when he tipped a Darnell Nurse point shot with just over five minutes left in the opening stanza.
But it was all Flames after that, Sean Monahan scoring his 12th just 1:08 into the second period to restore the two-goal cushion. Then it was Lindholm with his team-leading 16th to make it 4-1.
Keeping with the theme of fast starts to begin a period, Mikael Backlund would get his fifth of the year while the Flames were short-handed a scant 57 seconds into the third.
David Rittich was sharp all night with 29 stops.
"We wanted to come in here and play like we have on the road the last little bit and come out with a greasy win," Tkachuk told the assembled media following the victory. "I thought we did a good job of that. In the first half of the season, we played a lot of Eastern Conference teams and now we're starting to get into a stretch where we're playing a lot of divisional games and teams that are right there with us in the standings in the West. Everyone's saying that it was a 'statement game,' but I think we just wanted to come in here and play (well), score some goals, play good defence and come out with two points."
