The 2023 Heritage Classic takes place tonight (Oct. 29) at Commonwealth Stadium, where the Edmonton Oilers host the Calgary Flames for the latest and first outdoor installment of the Battle of Alberta. This is the 20th anniversary of the original Heritage Classic, which saw the Oilers take on the Montreal Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium on Nov. 22, 2003, in the first outdoor game in NHL history.
While there’s a fun atmosphere surrounding the festivities, the game is very serious for the Oilers, who are off to a dreadful start in 2023-24 and are desperate to reverse course before their season spirals down the drain. With a 1-5-1 record, the Oilers have just three points, tied for the fewest through the first seven games of a season in franchise history. They enter play Sunday 31st of 32 teams in the league’s overall standings, and with the NHL’s second-worst goal differential, minus-13.
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History says these Oilers are not championship contenders: no team has ever lost more than four times in its first seven games and gone on to hoist the Stanley Cup.
History has also seen many teams rebound from a tough start to make the playoffs. And the longest of longshots have proven that, so long as you get there, anything is possible in the postseason.
The Oilers have 75 games to make up the handful of points that currently separates them from the playoff cutline. They have much less time to reach their watershed: that one game that will be looked back upon as when everything changed. And in an odd way, history suggests that game can be the Heritage Classic.
Heritage Classic in 2003 Led to Oilers Slump
Back in 2003, the Oilers woke up the morning of the Heritage Classic with the fourth most points in the Western Conference and playing red-hot hockey with a 7-2-2-0 (wins-losses-ties-overtime losses) record in their last 11 games.
That night, in front of 57,167 fans braving bitterly cold temperatures at Commonwealth Stadium where the wind chill reached 15 below Fahrenheit, the home team fell 4-3 to the Habs. Montreal never trailed, and the Oilers fell behind by two on three separate occasions. Yanic Perreault and Richard Zednik each scored twice for the Habs, while Eric Brewer, Steve Staios and Jarret Stoll had Edmonton’s goals.
The Heritage Classic loss proved the turning point of Edmonton’s season, but in the wrong direction. From thereon, the Oilers would win just two more games before Christmas, and by the time the calendar turned to 2004, Edmonton had only three wins in its previous 18 games. On New Year’s Day, the Oilers had the fifth-fewest points in the 30-team league.
The Oilers did eventually get back on track and had an amazing run towards the end of the season, at one point picking up points in 16 straight games. But that was only good enough to get them within two points of the final playoff spot.
Montreal, meanwhile, used the Heritage Classic to right its ship. Going into the NHL’s first outdoor game, the Canadiens were sitting in last place in the Northeast Division and had won just three times in their previous 12 games. From the Heritage Classic until the end of the 2003-04 season, Montreal won the seventh most games in the NHL over that span, clinching a spot in the playoffs where they advanced to the second round.
Heritage Classic 2023 Could Spark Oilers Surge
Back to present day, the Oilers need a turning point (for that matter, so could the Flames, who have lost four straight, being outscored 15-4 in the process, and have just one win in their last seven games since opening the season with a 5-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets), but is there anything besides historical anecdotes to suggest that happens tonight?
There is, at least, reason to believe the Oilers are far better than they’ve played through seven games. After all, this team has virtually the same roster that closed out the 2022-23 season going 14-0-1 over the final 15 games.
Some of Edmonton’s shortcomings thus far in 2023-24 are addressable: defensive errors and a lack of spark. The former is largely why the Oilers were beaten 7-4 by the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday (Oct. 24), and the latter was evident throughout their 3-0 loss to the New York Rangers on Thursday (Oct. 26).
Edmonton could also get a boost from the return of captain Connor McDavid, who missed those last two games with an upper-body injury. The five-time Art Ross Trophy recipient practiced with the Oilers on Saturday (Oct. 28) and is likely to suit up against the Flames.
But for all his individual greatness, McDavid can’t inhabit his teammates’ bodies or control their thoughts. The Oilers’ aforementioned issues can only be corrected by the players who are making the mistakes, and the players who are not making an effort.
Oilers Face Flames in Critical Game
It would be ridiculous to say that with more than five months left in the season, the Oilers’ fate is sealed. But it’s not coincidence that, in more than 100 years, no team has gone all the way after starting this poorly. If a team isn’t very good in the first seven games, chances are they’re not going to be very good in the next seven games. Or the seven games after that. And so on. The Oilers can’t afford to be the same team they were for another two weeks as they were for the previous two weeks.
That’s why Sunday’s spectacle is so important from a results perspective. In the midst of the pomp and pageantry, there are two teams in desperate need of a win. Twenty years from now, will the 2023 Heritage Classic be remembered as an inflection point? We know that, if nothing else, this will not be just another game.
