In Calgary, the Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl completed a hat trick in the middle frame on Saturday. 
His third goal made the score 6-5 in favor of the Flames, but gave seemingly gave momentum to the Oilers heading to the third period.
Instead, the Flames took it as a challenge, shut down the Oilers offense in the third period, and scored three goals in a 9-5 win.
Johnny Gaudreau picked up five assists in the win, Matthew Tkachuk had a pair of goals and four points on the night.
“That was a lot of fun,” Gaudreau said. “I’ve been here for a long time, and I think this is the most competitive the Battle of Alberta has been since I’ve been here. We were excited to get going tonight. Obviously, it was kind of a crazy game, back and forth, power plays, but it was nice to see a lot of guys get rewarded tonight. A lot of guys scored, ‘Marky’ stuck with it. It was just a really good group effort, I think.”
Jacob Markstrom made 26 saves in the Flames win.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a single marker off the power play, for the Oilers.
“You can’t give up nine goals,” Draisaitl said. “It doesn’t matter against who. You’re never going to win a game in the NHL if you give up nine. We can talk all we want. It’s not good enough top to bottom. Starts with me, our leadership group. I’m pretty confident we’ll be better.”
The Oilers dropped their thud game in the last four, and fell to 36-25-5.
Derick Brassard opened the game’s scoring with a 1-0 lead for the Oilers.
Elias Lindholm hit for a double for Calgary, his first strike tied the game, 1-1.
“You go through ups and downs throughout the year,” Gaudreau said. “Tonight we had a lot of chances, and they went in for us.”
Christopher Tanev put the Flames ahead, 5-1, and Mikael Backlund scored the first of his two goals on the night for a 3-1 lead to the Flames.
Draisaitl struck twice for a 3-3 tie, but Oliver Kylington put the Flames ahead, again,4-3.
For Draisaitl, the frustration bubbled to the surface once more this season. The hat trick accomplishment was raised after the game.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” Draisaitl said. “You can’t lose 9-whatever, a game like that. Just leave it at that.”
Dillon Dube hit for a single marker for the Flames, his strike made the 9-5 final.
“I thought probably the turning point of the game was Marky’s save, and then we got the seventh goal right after that,” Tkachuk said. “Lots of guys got rewarded tonight, but I think that play probably should go down as the winning play for us. It was obviously a great play by a great player, and we needed that.”
Mikko Koskinen got the start and surrendered five goals, and made just seven saves before getting the hook in the middle frame.
“I don’t care who was in net tonight,” Edmonton’s Zach Hyman said. “It was nine even-strength goals. It doesn’t matter. It’s not on our goalies. It’s on us.”
Mike Smith made 22 saves in a mop up role.
“We played bad. We played poorly,” Hyman said. “I think it was nine even-strength goals against, right? What did we have, three power-play goals? 9-2 at even strength. Media is probably going to blame our goalies, but you can’t blame our goalies. We hung them out to dry. Just all-around poor performance.”
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