It was a "classic" matchup of teams with glorious pasts and hopeful, but uncertain futures.
As for the present? Well, as they might say in Montreal, 'Ce n'est pas un cadeau.' (It's not a gift.)
Such was the battle for 28th place in the overall NHL standings Thurs-day night between the staggering Montreal Canadiens and the stutter-stepping Edmonton Oilers.
A Heritage Classic this was not, in any real sense of the word.
Eyeballing this game between bottom-feeders for the last while, cynics have opined it was a battle for the second or third draft choice in the NHL's entry draft, depending on how the lottery balls fall. Loser takes all, or the next best thing, they sneered.
Not so, Oilers head coach Tom Renney was saying at the morning skate, citing professional pride being involved for both teams, even if playoff hopes are not.
"There's a very fine line between No. 1 and 28 and 29 and 30," Oilers head coach Tom Renney said after the morning skate. "Very, very fine line, quite honestly."
All right, then.
I'd imagine Oilers and Canadiens fans would beg to differ, you'd have to think. There the Oilers were, 14th overall in the Western Conference, 29th overall, their 58 points situating them 16 points out of a play-off spot and 33 behind the first-place St. Louis Blues.
The Canadiens were sitting last overall in the Eastern Conference, 12 points out of the playoffs and 31 adrift of first place.
There are more grim parallels between the two teams. Neither general manager, Steve Tambel-lini for the Oilers, Pierre Gauthier for the Canadiens, is assured of returning next season, although Gauthier's contract extends through the 2012-13 season.
The strong sense in Edmonton is that Tambellini has signed a two-or three-year extension that has yet to be announced.
As for the coaches, well unilingual anglophone Randy Cunneyworth, good, capable soldier that he is, seems unlikely to be back next sea-son as head man in Montreal, which has some serious organizational revision to undergo in the off-season.
In Edmonton, Tom Renney's two-year deal expires at season's end. As Jim Matheson reports elsewhere in this section, Renney, a superb teacher, a strong fit for the Oilers' lineup of gifted, but still-learning youngsters.
Earlier this week, Oilers president Kevin Lowe told a radio audience that no one in the Oilers organization expected the club to make the playoffs this season, and they sure won't. But since that measure can't be used to judge Renney's job performance, senior management will have to look to markers of growth and development, things like Jordan Eberle's 30-goal year, Jeff Petry's swift and impressive emergence as a two-way defenceman, the fact the club, bottom-feeder though it is, has the No. 1 power play in the league.
Come to think of it, the Oilers-Habs matchup was a battle of the NHL's top penalty kill (Montreal) and its most productive power play (Edmonton).
Not that you'd know that lately, given the paucity of penalties called on the Oilers' opponents in recent games. In the last six games, Edmonton had just seven power-play opportunities. They scored on three of them.
This has been perplexing Renney and his Oilers, actually. If there's one surefire way to handicap the fortunes of a 29th-place hockey club, don't let them go on the power play, where their youngsters Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Sam Gagner have time and space to operate.
Anyway, on Thursday night, the Oilers enjoyed two power plays in the first period, with Shawn Horcoff deflecting a Corey Potter slap shot past Peter Budaj to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead.
That held up until 19: 44 of the period, when Canadiens sophomore defenceman P.K. Subban banged a slap shot past Nikolai Khabibulin on a Montreal power play.
That added up to a period in which the two evenly matched clubs each produced 10 shots and one goal apiece.
Early in the second period, Max Pacioretty banged in a Scott Gomez rebound at 2: 02 to make it 2-1 Montreal, to the delight of a liberal sprinkling of fans wearing Canadiens jerseys at Rexall Place.
Mostly, thought, this was a tepid affair, as you'd expect from two teams long on promise, but short on relevance this year in the NHL.
As games go, this one was a rarity for diehard Edmonton-based Canadiens fans, who always come out in significant numbers to cheer on their heroes. But, still, for those with a memory of how these once-great teams used to go at it, this was no gift of a game.
Not at all.
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