from Eric Francis of Sportsnet,

Count Darryl Sutter is one of the few folks in southern Alberta who wasn’t buzzing with excitement following his club’s tribute to the 80s.

Yet, he still found a way to play along.

“Missed the convert,” was the Jolly Rancher’s opening take on Wednesday’s reinstallment of the Battle of Alberta.

“We were told it was a boring series last time, so I told the players yesterday, ‘we’ve got to score 7-10 goals today because they’d probably score 5-8 to win,’ so that’s what we did.”

Coming off a series against Dallas that took five games for the Flames to score nine goals, the Flames opened the first provincial punch-up in 31 years with a memorable 9-6 win over an Oilers squad that heard chants of “We want 10” a mere seven minutes in.

A classic in the eyes of almost everyone who wasn’t skating in the game, the Flames scored twice in the opening minute, gave up two four-goal leads and broke a 6-6 tie early in the third with three finishing touches.

continued

Game highlights are below.