Two items from NHL.com.

Go OILERS! Go Canes, too (Mark Recchi)!

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Edmonton Oilers say biting loss in regular season key to NHL playoff success
2:18 PM EDT, 06/03/2006

EDMONTON (CP) - To understand how the Edmonton Oilers have come to be within four games of romancing the Stanley Cup, you need to look back two months to a hellish one-night stand in St. Louis.

It was there in the heart of the Show Me State of Missouri that the copper and blue, fighting for their playoff lives, skated out and played like SpongeBob SquarePants, getting slapped upside the head by an NHL weakling.

But through the madness emerged the method to saving themselves and redeeming a season on the brink.

It was Al MacInnis jersey retirement night April 9 at the Savvis Center and Game 79 in the long march of the NHL regular season.

It was a chance for the Oilers to move up in the congested lower half of the Western Conference playoff race.

The Blues had lost 13 in a row and were starting rookie goalie Jason Bacashihua.

"We were nervous about the game, as nervous as we had been for a game for a long time," recalled defenceman Steve Staios. "Their goalie stood on his head. It seemed like everything was going wrong for us."

The Oilers had to kill off eight power plays. They woke up from a 2-0 deficit to fire shot after shot at Bacashihua in the third period but fell one goal short. They slipped to eighth in the conference and would rise no higher.

The dressing room was a still life portrait of sweat, silence and anger.

"Guys were pissed off," said winger Todd Harvey. "We had an opportunity to seal it.

"We just didn't bring it."

The team then stumbled into Detroit, where coach Craig MacTavish had a meeting with the troops then up and left, leaving his assistants to run practice.

"He probably wanted to kill everyone," defenceman Chris Pronger said at the time.

The loss typified a year of ironic twists, high expectations and unfulfilled promise in the Alberta capital.

It began in August when the new salary-capped NHL had fans lining up at the ticket wicket to be part of a promised level playing field.

General manager Kevin Lowe traded for and signed the biggest ticket of all, Pronger, along with centre Mike Peca.

But the season proved to one of consistent inconsistency. They beat teams above them in the standings, but were fodder for squads below.

MacTavish became Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill with a crucial win on the road, only to see it roll back with a loss at home.

Pronger struggled early by his Olympian standards, but by the new year had solidified himself as the straw that stirred the drink.

Peca was in the tank until late spring, and raised hackles for a news story in which he suggested Edmonton may not be such a good fit after all.

There were freak injuries. Defenceman Matt Greene cut his face when he got smacked by a truck that jumped the curb outside a nightclub. Ethan Moreau wrecked his ankle playing hoops.

Marty Reasoner had one slapshot bruise a lung and another shred his ear before he took it in the neck in March by being dispatched to the lowly Boston Bruins.

Goaltenders Ty Conklin, Jussi Markkanen and Mike Morrison struggled and key wins slipped away as the untimeliest of shots found the twine.

In March, Lowe brought in Minnesota Wild backup goalie Dwayne Roloson to go with speedy Bruins winger Sergei Samsonov.

Roloson needed playing time to shake off the rust. He was streaky and so was the team, but the fans were patient. In letters to the editor, Lowe was instructed, in the following order, to:

-fire MacTavish

-fire the coaching staff

-fire the front office

-fire himself.

The harshest criticism was saved for Roloson, who didn't have the paint dry on his new goal mask when he was being told to take a hike.

"Anyone who thinks Dwayne Roloson is going to lead us to the playoffs needs to give their head a shake," read one epistle.

"This guy is a sieve," shouted another.

(Less than a month later, the Sieve would become sanctified as Saint Roli, with fans rapturously chanting his name after each stunning game-saving playoff save.)

This was not considered unusual behaviour, however, in a city notorious for tough-loving its team.

Praise is lavished when times are good. But when they're not, the Rexall Centre can be a harsh environment.

This year's victim was Cory Cross, an Alberta boy who grew up with dewy-eyed love for the Oilers only to struggle with his big feet in the new roadrunner NHL. He was harassed and heckled, and as he left town in a January trade said tearily, "I'm sure the fans will pick on someone else."

As the snow melted and April arrived, the playoff berth remained maddeningly out of reach.

"We were squeezing our sticks," said Harvey.

Centre Shawn Horcoff said they knew more than a missed playoff opportunity was at stake.

"We know there would have been tons of personnel changes both in the locker-room and in management, and we didn't want that.

"We just knew what we had in here. We knew that if would get to the playoffs we were going to be able to do some damage.

The pressure vice appeared to squeeze even media-friendly Lowe. As he watched one practice, he told a TV cameraman aiming a lens in his direction to point it somewhere else - now. Words were later exchanged, hands shaken, a hatchet buried. The pressure remained.

Then came St. Louis - and redemption.

"We could've packed it in there," said Moreau.

He said after St. Louis and then the flat performance in a loss in Detroit, the coaches brought them off the mat by helping them discover that the answer lay within them.

"We realized the only way for this team to play good is (to have) a lot of energy and a lot of confidence and we manufactured that.

"The coaches created an environment after that Detroit game where you knew you could relax, go out and play - and that's what we did."

The next game - Game 81 at home against Anaheim - they became the last team to make the playoff cut. The pressure was released, exploding like black gold from a gushing oil well.

They haven't looked back, until this week at least, after practice at Rexall.

MacTavish was on his skates, leaning on his stick, and taking in a dressing room of laughing, joking, confident players who moved amongst hordes of reporters as they prepared to head east to chase their dream.

He was asked to reflect on St. Louis and on the day he walked away.

"It was just a case where you have a meeting with your team and sometimes the best statement you can make is .B .B . is .B .B ."

He stops.

"No, I don't want to say that."

He starts again.

"You vent your frustration to a certain amount and then the rest is up to the players.

"As it always is."

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Simulation says Hurricanes will beat Oilers in seven-game Stanley Cup final
1:48 PM EDT, 06/03/2006

(CP) - The video game version of the Stanley Cup ends with the Edmonton Oilers having their hearts broken.

California-based 2K Sports, makers of the NHL 2K6 game, ran a simulation of the Stanley Cup final and Edmonton forced a Game 7 only to watch Eric Staal lead the Carolina Hurricanes to victory.

Staal scored two first-period goals in the decisive game and goalie Martin Gerber made 35 saves as the Hurricanes beat Edmonton 4-2 to capture the franchise's first-ever NHL championship.

It was a disappointing end to an unlikely playoff run for the Oilers, who got to a deciding game with a 5-4 victory on home ice in Game 6. Ales Hemsky led the way with a hat trick in that one.

The right-winger was also key in getting Edmonton off to a good start in the series as he scored both goals in a tight 2-1 victory over the Hurricanes at RBC Center.

Carolina responded in Game 2 with a 6-4 victory on the strength of a goal and assist from Staal to even the series.

In Edmonton's return to the Rexall Centre, the Oilers rewarded their passionate fans in Game 3 with a 4-3 victory. Defenceman Chris Pronger had two goals and Ryan Smyth scored the winner with less than two minutes to play.

But Carolina won the next two games, taking the Oilers to the brink of elimination.

Gerber stopped 54 of 60 shots in Game 4 and Ray Whitney scored the winning goal late in the third period to give Carolina a 7-6 victory before the Hurricanes won 3-2 in Game 5.

Five of the seven games in the series were decided by one goal.

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