PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Flames

The Battle of Alberta returns for the first of two straight meetings between the Edmonton Oilers & Calgary Flames this holiday season on Tuesday night at Rogers Place.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet & Hockey Night in Canada at 7:00pm MST or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880 CHED.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Flames

EDMONTON, AB – There's nothing like a festive meeting with the Flames – let alone two in a row.

After the Oilers & Flames last met on opening night of the 2025-26 NHL season, the Battle of Alberta will return to Rogers Place on Tuesday for the first of two straight meetings between the Alberta rivals this holiday season before wrapping up on Saturday with a rematch at Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.

By the time the puck drops on Tuesday in Edmonton, it'll have been 76 days since the two provincial foes last encountered one another on Oct. 8, when the Flames escaped with a 4-3 shootout victory after erasing a three-goal lead for the Oilers to earn the extra point.

Leon Draisaitl notched his 400th career goal in the defeat that saw the Oilers outshoot the Flames 35-22, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scoring on the power play and Andrew Mangiapane getting one past his former team in the first period before the German recorded his milestone goal to open up a 3-0 lead.

Rookie Matvei Gridin and Connor Zary tallied 2:07 apart to make it 3-2 during the second period, and an early gift for Blake Coleman just 40 seconds into the final frame on a mistake from Stuart Skinner tied things up, ultimately earning Calgary a point. In overtime, the Oilers had a late power-play opportunity to win it before Dustin Wolf stopped all six shots he faced to get the game into the shootout, where Nazem Kadri scored the winner in the eighth round.

Calgary is coming off a 6-3 win over the Golden Knights on Saturday, the night before Vegas was beaten 4-3 by the Oilers in the second of a back-to-back, and is currently five points back of the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference with a 15-17-4 record after winning consecutive contests.

Since their loss to the Flames, the Oilers have since rallied from a slow start to their season, which was engulfed by a heavy road schedule that's starting to ease up after finishing a busy stretch of six games in nine days with a 6-2-0 record – including their last trip to the eastern time zone for the rest of the campaign – after Sunday's win over the Golden Knights in the second game of their own back-to-back.

The Oilers improved to 18-13-6 this season and sit in a tie for second place in the Pacific Division with the Golden Knights, going 7-2-1 in their last 10 games. Last December, the Oilers went 9-3-1 and need two more wins to match that number this year going into the start of a back-to-back Battle of Alberta.

There's another 'Connor' in town for the Oilers in the form of netminder Connor Ingram, who made 26 saves in his first NHL appearance since Feb. 22, 2025 when he was with Utah Hockey Club after being recalled from the AHL's Bakersfield Condors on Friday to replace the injured Tristan Jarry in the lineup.

Ingram was acquired by the Oilers on Oct. 1 from Utah after being cleared to return from the NHLPA's Player Assistance Program on Aug. 20, playing 11 games for Bakersfield this season and posting a record of 4-5-2 with a 4.04 goals against average and .856 save percentage before being called up and playing well in his first start in Edmonton 24 hours later to help guide them to a big victory over their Pacific Division rivals.

"It's been hectic, but at the end of the day, no matter what level you're in, my job is to stop the puck," Ingram said. "I don't have to learn a forecheck or things like that. My job never changes. So the guys did a great job making me feel welcome and showing me everything I need to know, and it's been great."

With Jarry expected to miss "a couple of weeks" with a lower-body injury he sustained during the second period in Boston on Thursday, Head Coach Kris Knoblauch revealed on Sunday, the 28-year-old has some runway to recapture the form that saw him post 23 wins with a .907 save percentage and 2.91 goals against average in 2024-25 with the Arizona Coyotes.

"There were a lot of days I didn't think it'd ever happen again," Ingram added. "It's just the truth of it. In this world, it's a competitive game, and there are 64 spots to do this, so you don't take it for granted. Any day you're up here, it's a huge honour."

"I've been through enough to know that the sun's coming up tomorrow. No matter what happens in this life, I have a wife and a family that loves me, and that's all that really matters. At the end of the day, you want to win hockey games, but there's a lot more to life than just hockey."

Ingram's debut win was helped over the goal line by some stellar defensive plays from Darnell Nurse and Spencer Stastney in the final minute of regulation when the Golden Knights pulled Carter Hart for the extra attacker, using their sticks to break up a pair of dangerous looks that proved vital to victory.

"I think I had a lot of help today," Ingram said. "Nurse breaks one up there at the end of the game. That's an empty net if he doesn't, so it's not just me. I thought all of us played well, and I think save percentage is a team stat. So when we do a job like we did today, it makes my job easier. I thought it was a great effort from top to bottom."

Stastney has been integral on the back end for the Oilers in recent games since his acquisition from the Nashville Predators that happened in tandem with the trade that sent Stuart Skinner and a 2029 second-round pick to Pittsburgh in exchange for Tristan Jarry and Samuel Poulin.

Being out on the ice during the last minute to help deliver a win on Sunday was a big show of confidence in Stastney from the coaching staff.

"Fantastic," Knoblauch said of Stastney. "He's very agile. Probably one of the better skaters in the NHL. Now, the fact that he is a better skater means that he can skate out of trouble and make a lot of plays. Not high risk, very reliable. It's only been a handful of games, but his report card is very positive."

Ingram got plenty of offensive support on Sunday with a 4-0 lead, which the Golden Knights battled back from to make it a one-goal deficit after each of Connor McDavid (1G, 2A), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2G, 1A), Zach Hyman (1G, 1A) and Leon Draisaitl (2A) recorded multiple points over the first two frames.

McDavid's three points extended his point streak to a whopping 10 games with 26 points (12G, 14A) and included a goal in his fifth straight game, overtaking Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL's scoring lead with 62 points (23G, 39A) in 37 games, while retaining the NHL's First Star honours for the second straight week with 10 points (5G, 5A) over a four-game stretch.

Draisaitl hasn't recorded a goal in Edmonton's last eight games, but the German has still produced plenty with 15 assists over that stretch, along with a four-game point streak of nine helpers after assisting on the Oilers' first two goals against the Golden Knights on Sunday.

Zach Hyman has 12 points in his last 10 games, including eight goals, and is near a point-per-game pace with 16 points in 18 games since making his return from injury last month, while Nugent-Hopkins' pair of power-play markers and an assist made him the fourth Oiler this season to reach 30 points.