2019 Playoff Preview: 1C) Edmonton Oil Kings vs. 3C) Calgary Hitmen

Franchise playoff history:

2013 Conference Finals 4-3 Edmonton. The teams were destined to meet as the one and two seeds in the hotly contested Eastern Conference. To no one’s surprise the series needed all seven games. Calgary forced it with an exciting overtime win in Game 6. The Oil Kings held court in Edmonton for the series finale, besting the Hitmen 2-0 to head to the WHL finals. It was the second of three straight times the Oil Kings headed to the finals to face off with the Portland Winterhawks.

2009 first round 4-0 Calgary. The Hitmen allowed just three goals en route to the four game sweep of the Oil Kings. 55 points separated the two teams in the regular season, the series was just a formality as Edmonton needed a play in game to even make it to the first round. The Hitmen went on to lose to the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL Finals in six games.

Jack McNaughton (photo-Candice Ward)

2018-19 head-to-head:

Edmonton 7-0-1-0

Calgary 1-6-1-0

On paper this series looks lopsided.

In the eight regular season games the teams played against each other, Edmonton scored 36 goals. Calgary was only able to muster 17.

Edmonton held the play through much of the regular season series, their only loss coming in overtime way back on December 1st in Calgary.

Jake Kryski was involved in three of the four goals scored in that lone win by the Hitmen. He is currently out with an upper body injury.

Otherwise it has been mostly Edmonton, with goals coming from a wide cast of characters including Carter Souch, Zach Russell, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Scott Atkinson and Vince Loschiavo, all who’ve experienced multi-point nights against their Highway 2 rivals.

Mark Kastelic-Andrew Fyten(Photo by Candice Ward/Calgary Hitmen)

Jack McNaughton was the Hitmen goalie of record in all but the first and last games of the season against Edmonton, while Dylan Myskiw also started six of eight games, he was 6-0-0-0 against Calgary.

Leading Edmonton in scoring during the season series was 20-year-old forward Loschiavo. The Winnipeg, MB product tallied 10 points (6G-4A) to lead all players in goals and points.

Leading Calgary was captain Mark Kastelic. The 2019 NHL Draft eligible prospect produce five goals and seven point in eight games. The Phoenix, AZ, USA born Kastelic was involved in seven of the Hitmen’s 17 goals scored against the Oil Kings in the regular season (41.2%)

2018-19 season:

-Edmonton – The class of the Central division, Edmonton fought off a strong stretch run by the Lethbridge Hurricanes by winning their last 11 games. They were the third least penalized team in the WHL during the regular season and enjoyed the fifth most chances on the power play. They finished the season with a 42-18-4-4 record, good for fifth in the entire WHL and a 40 point improvement over 2017-18.

-Calgary – No one was really sure what was going to happen to the Hitmen this season. They brought in a goaltender with a know medical issue and did not get a lot of service out of Carl Stankowski. They brought up and sent down back up goalies throughout the season, but the one steadying factor was McNaughton. The rookie played well enough, especially after Christmas to help the Hitmen to third in the Central Division. Their record was 36-26-5-1, an 18-point improvement on 2017-18 and enough to land them in the playoffs after missing last season.

Vince Loschiavo (photo by Andy Devlin)

How they got here:

The Oil Kings started off sluggish against the Medicine Hat Tigers, losing two of the first three games. They needed overtime in Game 6 to put the Tigers away, scoring 19 goals along the way. They also gave up 18 goals, twice allowing five goals against in a single game. Loschiavo (4G,3A) and Fix-Wolansky (3G,4A) lead the Oil Kings offense with seven points in six games. Myskiw gave up the net after giving up nine goals on 71 shots over three games, losing twice. Todd Scott came in and steadied things, winning three straight and posting a 2.69 GAA.

The Hitmen needed the full seven games to pull off the minor upset of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the first round. There were goals galore in the series, 29 for the Hitmen and 26 for the Hurricanes. Kastelic missed a couple of games with an injury that occurred during the series and he still piled up seven points (5G, 2A) to lead the Hitmen in scoring. He was joined by Carson Focht who had four goals and three assists.

Ethan Cap-Carson Focht (Andy Devlin)

Storylines to watch:

Can Calgary continue to play spoiler? The Hitmen entered the playoffs on a four-game slide, lost the first two games to Lethbridge then found a way to take four of the next five. They will need to continue to find the back of the net against a tough Edmonton team. Edmonton has struggled to keep pucks out of their own net, but the same can be said for Calgary. They were able to out-gun a high-powered offense in the Hurricanes, if nothing else this series should be exciting for the fans, and not the coaching staffs.

Can Steve Hamilton lead the Hitmen over his former club? Hamilton was the head coach for Edmonton over the previous four seasons, and missed the playoffs in the last three. Both teams under went changes in the off-season and both made improvements in the overall standings. Hamilton knows the Oil Kings players and their tendencies, will he be able to exploit them for his team’s overall gain?

Could a slow start derail the Oil Kings this time around? Losing two of their first three games against the Tigers was surprising, coming off of an 11-game win streak to end the regular season. Fans were concerned that they had come into the series thinking too highly of themselves. They can’t do that against Calgary, despite owning them in the regular season. Once the Oil Kings settled in and figured out how to score on Mads Sogaard, the Oil Kings polished off the Tigers, winning the last three in a row. This time they might not be so lucky if Calgary comes out firing out of the gate.

How they match up:

14 points separated the two teams in the regular season standings, and 11 points were the difference in the season series. Doesn’t change the fact that both teams have been piling up the goals of late. An offensive dual is exactly what the fans want to see, with chances at both ends.

Todd Scott (photo by Andy Devlin)

If the regular season is any indication, Edmonton will be able to stop more pucks than Calgary. Scott has been the better of the two Oil Kings netminders thus far in the playoffs but that doesn’t mean that Myskiw won’t see the net. Rookie Hitmen goalie McNaughton hasn’t been as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season but he did come through in his biggest game to date, allowing just two goals on the road to the Hurricanes in Game 7.

We know what the offense can do for both teams and what the goalies have not been so great at. It may come down to team defense and who figures it out the quickest. When they needed to be, the Hitmen were methodical, and patient with the puck in their own end and in getting it deep into Hurricanes territory. After a lackluster three games to open their first round series, the Oil Kings figured it out against the Tigers.

You’ve got to figure no matter which way you look at it, these teams will slug it out in a tough series. The winner of this series will go on to face either the juggernaut Prince Albert Raiders or the nearly equally as good Saskatoon Blades. It all begins in Edmonton on Saturday April 6th at 7PM

DubNetwork prediction:

The voices of DUBNetwork have spoken and the group has chosen the Edmonton Oil Kings to take the series in 7 games.