Nurse and Lucic have epic throwdown, Tkachuk and Neal square off to fuel the Battle of Alberta

The Battle of Alberta is alive and well. The Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames squared off Saturday night in a close and tense matchup that saw the Oil squeak out a 3-2 victory. Near the end of the first period, Edmonton's Darnell Nurse and Calgary's Milan Lucic decided to drop the gloves for what would be an excellent tilt with a few haymakers being thrown. This could definitely be considered a heavyweight matchup, with Nurse coming in at 6' 4", 221 lbs, while Lucic is a solid 6' 3", 231 lbs. Nice to see the mutual respect between the two as Nurse would give Lucic a pat on the hip following the fight while you could see Lucic say something along the lines of "nice one". Personally, I'll give a slight edge to Lucic on this one for a couple of extra punches thrown, but both stood their ground well. Say what you want about Lucic, and there's no question he's not living up to the $6 million a year contract he has, but the guy can go toe-to-toe with pretty much anyone in the league and he usually comes out on top.

Just a little while later, Matthew Tkachuk and James Neal went toe-to-toe is a surprisingly good tilt. Tkachuk is no stranger to the rough stuff. Neal has fought several times throughout his career but his bouts are sporadic. Both got in some pretty good punches in this one with Neal landing a big one at the end. Check it out:

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