Hate.
At times on Saturday night at the Saddledome in Calgary, it seethed.
And it was glorious. Mightily, brilliantly, glorious.
Saturday night was alright for mayhem and the Battle of Alberta had it in droves.
A great game of hockey bookmarked massive hits, fights and hate. Did I mention hate?
Things are getting nasty over in Alberta 👊https://t.co/lmhYSgK7AC #BattleofAlberta pic.twitter.com/2oRS5emOii
— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) November 18, 2018
The montage above was just first-period highlights.
Let’s recap:
- The Leon Drasaitl hit on Matthew Tkachuk knocked the latter out of the game for a while
- Nurse clearly threw another bomb after the linesmen go in between him Sam Bennett
- Nurse was telling the linesman to let him and not in those exact words
- Connor McDavid and Mikael Backlund wrestled
The hit that led to Nurse and Bennett scraping is here:
Sam Bennett bringin' the boom early in the #BattleOfAlberta. 💥#HockeyNight pic.twitter.com/w3HKGg5NrI
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 18, 2018
The hate resumed in the second period, because of course it did.
Milan Lucic was engaged in this game, a sight for sore eyes for Oilers fans.
Here’s a sample of that engagement:
Battle of Alberta putting on a physical one tonight pic.twitter.com/xGbsFWHMp9
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) November 18, 2018
Now, if Lucic can bottle that and take some sips before each game going forward...
Oilers Twitter seemed quite pleased with No. 27 during the game.
Calgary prevailed in the game, winning 4-2 after scoring four unanswered as the Oilers squandered a 2-0 lead.
Neither team started their struggling No. 1 netminders. David Rittich for Calgary was the better of the two backups in the game, stopping three breakaways in the game. Edmonton simply couldn’t douse the Flames, who kept it coming in the third frame when the Oilers started to fizzle out.
Bonus: For old times’ sake, here’s the scrap of all scraps in the Battle of Alberta:
Dave Brown Jim Kyte #LetsGoOilers #BattleOfAlberta pic.twitter.com/pmajXg8MDP
— Vintage Oilers (@VintageOilers) November 18, 2018
John Tortorella would have been proud.
Let the hype begin for the next game in the famed series on Dec. 9 in Edmonton.
Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck