Back home on the farm, Darryl Sutter had to be smiling as he watched the first period of Saturday's fast, furious and acrimonious Battle of Alberta.
It was like a trip straight back to '04.
The Flames came out with all kinds of juice and punished their Alberta cousins with a high-flying and physical game.
Only one thing was missing:
The payoff.
Johnny Gaudreau and Noah Hanifin supplied the offence, while Jacob Markstrom made 30 saves, but it wasn't enough as Connor McDavid capped a three-point night with a late strike off the rush, sending the Oilers to a 3-2 victory at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
"It stings as a loss, but I thought we competed," said Hanifin, who scored the go-ahead goal at 1:42 of the third period, before Kailer Yamamoto levelled the count less than five minutes later. "If we play that way, if we compete that way, we'll have success more often than not.
"It's something to build off, anyway."
The Flames came out like gangbusters and out-shot the Oilers 21-10 in the opening 20, recording a retina-searing seven high-danger scoring chances in the first five minutes of the game, alone.
In true Battle of Alberta fashion, the first-period action was capped with a pair of melees - a heavyweight bout between Milan Lucic and Darnell Nurse, and the other, a surprising dust-up between another pair of former teammates when Matthew Tkachuk and James Neal chucked knuckles.
Markstrom, who returned to the paint after missing six games with an upper-body injury, was predictably great throughout the evening. Still, after facing a 23-puck barrage in the final two periods, he pointed the finger at himself.
"The biggest difference tonight was goaltending," he said. "(Mike Smith) made a couple save when he needed to, and I didn't. It sucks when you feel like you didn't bail your team out. … It sucks getting a loss out of this game when the guys played so well in front of me."
Assistant Coach Ryan Huska - who manned the bench and will again tonight as we await the arrival of Sutter - was having none of it.
"That's Jacob," he said. "He's the type of goaltender that feels every goal is a stoppable goal. That's his personality, that's his makeup, and that's what makes him such an excellent goaltender."
