Looking back at the three trades between the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers

You can tell that a real rivalry exists in sports when it seems to bleed through from the fanbases into the players and even the front offices. Case in point: the Battle of Alberta. During the many, many years the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers have co-existed in the National Hockey League, they’ve made just three trades.

Here are those three swaps.

This was 2010’s trade deadline, the Flames were a point out of the Western Conference’s final playoff spot and the Oilers were in last place in the entire NHL, so asset accumulation was the name of the game in Edmonton and trying to get into the post-season was the goal in Calgary. (Sutter had previously made trades sending Dion Phaneuf to Toronto and Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust to the NY Rangers.)

But the Flames won just 10 of their final 20 games, going 10-9-1 from deadline day onward and missing the playoffs by five points – missing the dance for the first time since 2002-03. The Oilers received Calgary’s third-rounder in 2011 and drafted Travis Ewanyk.

It was early in the season, neither team was particularly close to a playoff spot, and this deal seemed like both clubs looking to shuffle the decks a bit. The Oilers got a bit of youthful energy in the form of Horak, while the Flames got a veteran blueliner to provide a bit of stability for a young defensive group (and a young team in general).

Smid ended up finishing his NHL tenure on the long-term injury reserve due to a persistent back injury, but he was quite solid for the club when he was healthy.

The Oilers signed Lucic in 2016 to a six-year deal. It didn’t really work for him in Edmonton, as he never really found his mojo. The Flames signed Neal in 2018 to a five-year deal. It didn’t really work for him in Calgary, as his expected top six spot instead went to Elias Lindholm. The Flames and Oilers effectively swapped square-peg contracts to see if the other could make things work.

The trade conditions became a bit of a mess. Neal had 21 goals and Lucic 8 goals when the 2019-20 season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After extensive negotiations, eventually it was decided that the Flames would receive a third-round pick from Edmonton in either the 2020 or 2021 drafts; Edmonton opted to give up their 2021 pick. The Flames traded back in the third round with Los Angeles, ultimately getting Cameron Whynot and Jack Beck from the transaction, a pair of selections they eventually opted not to sign.

Lucic was pretty solid for the Flames during his three seasons, emerging as an effective (albeit fairly overpriced) role player.