The psychological war in the BOA

Is there a more perfect picture of the Battle of Alberta in the playoffs than this picture? I was wondering what picture to post and then this came across my screen in the first checklist.  The Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames really don’t like each other.

It’ll be worth noting that the Edmonton Oilers will have the mental war in the second round on their side. What’s going on inside the players’ heads is often even more important than what’s going on inside their bodies when it comes to the NHL playoffs.

The reason I say the Oilers will have the mental edge in this series is because Calgary will have a lot more pressure on them to win than the Oilers will. You know both teams will bring it and the series will go to seven games, but the Oilers will be better equipped to handle the pressure than the Flames will be.

It all starts on Wednesday, and frankly I can’t wait.

But let’s go into why the Edmonton Oilers will win the mental war.

Calgary won the division in the regular season, and that makes them the favourites to win the series. The Oilers were the favourites to win in round one, but in round two they’ll be the underdogs. Calgary finished with a slightly higher points % than the Oilers did, so unlike in round one the Edmonton Oilers won’t have home ice advantage, but what they will have is the underdog role – which is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the team doesn’t approach the series with a defeatist attitude, which I doubt they will.

You see, as the underdog the Edmonton Oilers can simply play their game without having to feel trapped by pressure inside their own heads like the Flames will be. The pressure is intensified on the Flames because they finished higher in the standings. When you’re expected to win it’s not as much of an accomplishment – at least from the media and fan side – as it is when you’re not expected to win.

The Edmonton Oilers will be able to use that to their advantage mentally throughout the series. If I were Jay Woodcroft I’d be all over that – “Just relax and play, boys. The pressure is on them to win, not us.”

That’s right, Calgary’s two best players are wingers Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk whose contracts are up after this season. The two combined for a $13.75 million cap hit over this season.

On a lesser scale, the contracts of Andrew Mangipane and blueliner Nikita Zadorov are also up.

Complicating matters even more is the fact that both players finished with a shooting % this season which is ~ 3% over their career shooting % so it’s likely that their seasons of 115 and 104 points respectively are more of an aberration than a new normal for the pair.

I mean, what do you pay guys who seem to look poised to take a tumble in stats but are still very good players?

GM Brad Treliving could’ve locked them up in season and taken steps to decrease their cap hits – front load the contracts, give them a huge signing bonus if they signed for a moderate paycheque afterwards, there’s all kinds of ways to get creative with their contracts.

But Treliving didn’t do that. He foolishly didn’t lock either player up and is now facing the very real possibility he could lose both in free agency for nothing, when losing even one of them would be a huge hit to the team’s fortunes. Take a look if you don’t believe me.

There could be other factors at play, but to me this says that there’s a good chance the players don’t believe in the team over the long term.

The Edmonton Oilers, on the other hand, have no such issue with their two best players, who were locked up in good time without any possibility of being signed by some other team for nothing. Connor Mcdavid has another four seasons on his current deal while the Deutschland Dangler Leon Draisaitl has another three seasons remaining.

This means the Flames could potentially have this season, and this season only, to make a long playoff run and win a cup. That’s a heck of a lot of pressure, especially when they didn’t even make the playoffs at all the season before.

Mike Smith and Jacob Markstrom both did excellent work in the first round, but I have to believe that Smith will be extra motivated to win this series because he has a score to settle with the Calgary Flames.

For you see, Calgary did not re-sign Smith after the 2018-19 season. It was then that the Edmonton Oilers snapped him up for cheap, then again for another year, then another two years last offseason.

To be facing the Flames now on the biggest stage of the NHL gives Smith a chance for revenge and vindication. As we all know by now, if there’s one thing Smith takes to heart with a proverbial middle finger right back, it’s being criticized.

Markstrom is an ex-Vancouver Canuck, and as such will be facing his first playoff entry into the battle of Alberta. So is Smith, I suppose, but Markstrom doesn’t have the extra motivation of being a spurned ex-Oiler. The fact that Mike Smith is a spurned ex-Flame could turn out to be the mental difference in this series as far as the goaltending goes.

So now the Flames not only have to contend with containing the McDrai duo, then shutting down the depth scorers around them, and getting through the Oilers D to score plus shutting down the Oiler’s attack from the blueline, but then they have to get past a goaltender who has a score to settle with their organization. I have to think that’s pressure.

Not to mention Markstrom only has 21 playoff games under his belt, only 14 of which was on years of subpar Canucks teams. Smith has 36 career playoff games, 29 of which were before the first round of this season. He has a better playoff sv%, .932 to Markstrom’s .925, and a better lifetime playoff GAA too, 2.33 to Markstrom’s 2.4.

Smith has already out-duelled Jonathan Quick, and if I was a betting man I’d bet on Smith out-duelling Markstrom in this series.