Chicago v Vancouver tonight has me thinking about rivalries. TSN saying CHI/VAN is probably the biggest and best rivalry going at the moment. PHI/PIT is pretty epic too though, I'd say thats the best one currently.
Kind of hard to predict, since rivalries are more based on one incident/one playoff match now then geography like they used to be.
I will say that I am kind of surprised that BOS/PHI hasnt been a thing. Neither team backs down, both have toughness throughout the lineup, both are legit contenders in the East (Flyers bad start notwithstanding).
^^ especially if the standings finish up in a unique way. Right now were looking at EDM v VAN there could be some great match ups, creating fresh rivalries.
The economy is about to boom again in Alberta, Calgary needs to rebuild and capitalise on the dollars people will soon be spending again. Calgarys current organisational structure and personell severly limits the ways they can accomplish this task.I think they will try to go very young, big and aggressive and attempt to outmuscle our talent and keep their fans happy, there are few ways to combat our skill and talent depth and calgary is not in our league in that arena anymore.
Oh yes, I see Calgary trying to take our team to pieces once Iggy and the spaced out mellow attitude is gone in that dressing room. And we will need to respond as soon as we recognise that the road to the playoffs for the Edmonton Oilers will always be Paved over the Calgary Flames -- it has been our ignorance of that fact here in Edmonton that buffered the rivalry in the first place. As soon as we decide to win we will understand how critical dominating Calgary really is to our overall sucess.
The Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames rivalry is about to burst back into view very very soon, and as soon as Calgary begins to man up with bigger younger faster guys we will see the nasty come out in everyone. Calgary needs to recognise this is their best option to keep their fans happy and Edmonton needs to set the bar higher and realise they cannot do that until they can dominate Calgary in their backyard first.
It's hard to know. Imo, to be a proper rivalry, you need to play each other in the playoffs, and there needs to be some sort of "incident" at some point in the season that causes players and fans to hate the other team.
Came in to say Oilers-Kings, been thinking it's been brewing ever since that game that Hall and Doughty got after each other... I believe 2 years ago?
It's all setting up very nicely with the number of our ex-players on their team, the Fraser-Smyth trade bad blood, the competitive streaks of Hall and Doughty, and the general constitution of their 'immovable object' style of play/team makeup to our 'unstoppable force' style of play/team makeup.
there could be some great match ups, creating fresh rivalries.
