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The NHL’s Battle of Alberta has long been one of the Western Conference’s most potent rivalries. While the match-up fizzled over the years with both the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers mired in bottom-dwelling finishes, the past few seasons have seen a slight resurgence.

First came Calgary’s long-awaited return to the postseason in 2015, followed by the arrival of generational phenom Connor McDavid in Edmonton last season. As both teams have undergone significant changes this offseason, it’s time to see how their new iterations will measure up over the coming campaign:

Forwards:

Even without Taylor Hall – who reigned as one of Edmonton’s top forwards throughout his half-decade with his original club – the Oilers’ forward corps remains a force. Leading the charge is McDavid, who seems set for a breakout campaign in 2016-17.

The 19-year-old proved his worth during his rookie debut, scoring over a point per game pace while being limited to just 45 games due to injury (finishing with 48 points). Heading into his sophomore effort healthy and perhaps motivated by the limitations put on his first season due to his time on the shelf, McDavid is going to be a nightmare for opposing defenses.

Mitigating the loss of Hall will be recent addition Milan Lucic. While the big bruising winger will likely have more of an impact outside of the scoresheet, he’s a good bet for 20-25 goals, especially if he ends up lining up alongside McDavid for a fair chunk of the year.

And then, of course, come the rest of the team’s usual impressive offensive pieces – namely Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Leon Draisaitl.

Eberle looks primed to flirt with career-best marks once again, as there’s a good chance he could see time with McDavid and Lucic for much of 2016-17.

Nugent-Hopkins and Draisaitl have a few more question marks attached to their names, but both have enough skill to suggest they’ll become meaningful contributors for Edmonton once again.

Add in depth options like Benoit Pouliot, Nail Yakupov, and 2016 draft pick Jesse Puljujärvi, and the advantage borders on absurdity.

Despite the team finishing 25th in the league in goals-for per game last season, the overall talent of Edmonton’s forwards group still suggests they’ll be able to become a force if the rest of their roster rounds into shape (i.e. if they don’t have to spend the majority of games defending in their own zone).

On the Flames’ side, there’s certainly some similar top-end potential, but far less depth.

Johnny Gaudreau surprised all last season when he established himself as more than simply a quality option for Calgary, but in fact one of the best offensive weapons in the game. The diminutive winger finished sixth in league scoring with 30 goals and 78 points, topping his already impressive rookie debut from one year prior.

Linemate Sean Monahan wasn’t too shabby either, posting his third straight campaign of 20 or more goals (27 this time around, after posting 31 last year), while reaching the 60-plus point range once again. The newest rookie debut came from Sam Bennett, who similarly came up with some decent numbers, totalling 18 goals and 36 points in 77 contests.

Heading into 2016-17, the Flames have three fairly guaranteed successes in Gaudreau, Monahan, and Bennett, who all seem to be developing nicely and excelling more and more with each passing season. But after that, the drop-off is much sharper than it is in Edmonton.

Michael Frolik and Mikael Backlund will be a decent secondary scoring duo once again, and new addition Troy Brouwer should add some more goals to the pile as well. But past that it’s unclear what exactly Calgary has in their bottom six, with wildcards like Micheal Ferland and Lance Bouma manning the fort.

The Flames’ newest draft pick, Matthew Tkachuk, will fight for a job with the big team as well, but it isn’t yet clear whether he’ll get a shot right off the bat. It’s even less clear how much of an impact he’ll be able to have in his rookie year.

Both teams have offensive groups with plenty of promise, but Edmonton remains the winner up front at the moment. Calgary has some strong options with Gaudreau, Monahan, and Bennett, but none will reach the level McDavid will get to in the next few seasons, and the Oilers have a plethora of other talented scorers behind him as well. Point, Edmonton.

Defense:

Slowly but surely, the Oilers’ defensive group is inching towards legitimacy. They aren’t there yet, but after icing the league’s worst blue line for a fair chunk of years, the Oilers now have plenty to look forward to in regards to their defensive group.

Adam Larsson may be a woeful underpayment for a player of Hall’s caliber, but he is a solid defensive-minded rearguard, which is precisely what Edmonton needed. He won’t fit the mold of a number-one defenseman the way some will hope (i.e. he isn’t likely to challenge the Kris Letangs or Duncan Keiths of the hockey world), but he will help keep pucks out of Edmonton’s net.

Andrej Sekera remains a strong veteran option with a fairly decent track record (despite taking a step back last season) to help the club’s young defenders along. The most interesting pieces in the mix will continue to be Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse, who appear to have potential but are still going through the developmental ups and downs that all young blueliners go through.

If they can take a significant step forward in the next couple seasons, Edmonton’s defense as a whole will rise with them. The only question is when that transition occurs.

The Oilers have a few other interesting options to round out the group as well, most notably Brandon Davidson, who led all of Edmonton’s defenders with a Corsi For percentage of 52.1 last season, while also posting the lowest even-strength goals-against per 60 minutes mark (1.9).

And yet, while the Oilers are making progress on their back-end, it remains nowhere near Calgary’s potent blue line.

The Flames have three defensemen who would very likely have taken over the mantle of No. 1 defenseman for Edmonton last season – Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, and Dougie Hamilton.

All three finished with over 40 points, a fairly astounding fact in itself, with Giordano’a 21 goals and 56 points leading the way. Brodie and Hamilton tallied 45 and 43 points, respectively.

Giordano remains one of the top defenseman in the sport (just ask San Jose’s Logan Couture). He proved it in 2014-15 in a season that had him pegged for the Norris Trophy before his injury, and he proved it again in 2015-16 when he rebounded from a horrid start to post career-best numbers.

Brodie and Hamilton both had fairly strong campaigns as well, though neither has seemed to hit his true ceiling just yet, which speaks to the long-term strength of Calgary’s blue-line. When 32-year-old Giordano eventually hangs them up, Brodie will undoubtedly take over as the club’s top option, and that transition figures to be a smooth one.

Depth isn’t an issue for Calgary either, as the Flames have three more serviceable options in Deryk Engelland, Dennis Wideman, and mid-season acquisition Jyrki Jokipakka. Of those three, Wideman is the one the Flames are likely trying the hardest to get rid of, and he’s amassed 75 points over his past two campaigns.

Just as was the case with Edmonton’s forwards, Calgary takes the blue-line category fairly easily – their top options are better (in this case, much much better) and their depth is greater as well. The Oilers are getting close to icing an all-around solid defensive group, but it will take much more than that to top the absurd two-way talent currently housed in Calgary.

Goaltending:

Both clubs have finally managed to right the ship in regards to their goaltending.

Edmonton did so last summer when they brought in star backup Cam Talbot, gambling on the former New York Ranger being able to excel in a bigger role. While it didn’t necessarily pay off fully – Talbot wasn’t able to carry the Oilers any further than they finished in recent years – the 29-year-old did prove his worth as a fairly solid number-one option.

Playing behind a very porous blue line (which gave up the fourth-most shots in the league), Talbot posted a respectable save-percentage of 0.917, good for 18th among all goaltenders who played at least half of their team’s games last season.

However, over the latter half of the year (after Dec. 1, specifically), Talbot settled in and posted some truly impressive numbers – namely, the fifth-best save-percentage in the league (0.924) from that point on. Considering what he was dealing with in front of him, his performance was exceptional, and a clear sign that the Oilers will have solid goaltending if they can put together a half decent blue line.

If he can continue to play as he did over the latter half of 2015-16, and the Oilers’ defense continues to progress, then the club might just put together the type of season that could halt the unending jokes about their horrid defense.

But again, Edmonton’s progress seems lesser than the Flames’, as Calgary is fresh off acquiring former St. Louis Blues standout Brian Elliott.

The veteran backstop led all goaltenders with an excellent save-percentage of 0.930 last season. It wasn’t simply a flash in the pan either – Elliott’s save-percentage over the past five years averages out to 0.925 (alongside 25 shutouts), as he’s been a stud throughout his time in St. Louis.

He’s undoubtedly one of the most underrated netminders in the league considering the numbers he’s put up over the past half-decade and the little attention he gets in conversations of the game’s current best in net, but a few questions remain in regards to Elliott’s transfer to Calgary.

First, he’ll be playing behind a new blue line, which always brings the issue of whether or not his numbers will hold up. In this case, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue, as the Flames in fact allowed slightly fewer shots per game last season (29.0) than the Blues did (29.7).

Calgary will have a new coaching staff behind the bench in 2016-17, so it’s anyone’s guess how well they’re able to keep up their shot suppression, but the talent present on their blue line suggests they’ll be just fine.

The second issue will be how Elliott holds up with a larger workload. As the Blues have been trying to work in Jake Allen over the past few years, Elliott hasn’t played more than 46 games in one season since back in 2011, despite his stellar play. All signs point to him being required to be Calgary’s undisputed starter for much of the year, however, meaning he’d be playing upwards of 60 games (as was the case with the top 10 starters in the league last season).

There hasn’t been any evidence to suggest Elliott would struggle with that workload increase – and in fact, considering he posted league-leading numbers last year, a drop-off would still put him among the NHL’s best – but it is a change worth watching moving forward.

Elliott comes to Calgary as a clear answer to their present goaltending woes, and unless there is some unforeseen major change to his level of performance, he should be able to give the club what they seek. If that is the case, then the Flames take the cake in terms of goaltending as well.

There’s no question Elliott is a better netminder than Talbot, and the Flames also have a reliable new backup in Chad Johnson, and plenty of depth for the future in Jon Gillies, Mason McDonald, and Tyler Parsons. So it seems they’re set up for sustained success in this category if all goes to plan.

The Verdict:

Despite the significant progress Edmonton has made across the board, the club looks set for another season of being the second-best team in Alberta.

There’s no denying the fact that Connor McDavid could very well be one of the game’s best players – if not the best – in just a couple years, but it takes far more than one exceptional talent to build a team truly ready to contend.

The progress seen throughout the rest of the Oilers’ lineup is evidence of the steps they’re taking to find that organizational balance – but as of right now, the Oilers just don’t measure up to the Flames in terms of defense or goaltending, and those discrepancies could wind up being the central factors in determining where the two clubs finish in 2016-17.

Battle of Alberta: Who stacks up better in 2016-17?