EDMONTON -- The Carolina Hurricane will take their second crack at winning the Stanley Cup Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, RDS, NHL Radio) at Rexall Place, leading the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2, headed into what figures to be a memorable Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.
For the Oilers, it is their second-straight elimination game, and the home team would like nothing better than to force a Game 7 Monday night back at the RBC Center in Raleigh.
Carolina will be without center Doug Weight, who suffered an unspecified upper-body injury in Wednesday's Game 5 overtime loss. Defenseman Aaron Ward, also injured in that game, will return.
"Doug will not be available for us for Game 6," was all Carolina coach Peter Laviolette said of Weight's status. But he did note his team was excited and ready to play.
|
|
Schedule / Links:
| |
| Gm. 1: CAR 5, EDM 4 | Photos |
| Gm. 2: CAR 5, EDM 0 | Photos |
| Gm. 3: EDM 2, CAR 1 | Photos |
| Gm. 4: CAR 2, EDM 1 | Photos |
| Gm. 5: EDM 4, CAR 3 OT | Photos |
Gm. 6: June 17, 8:00 p.m. ET
at Edmonton (NBC, CBC, RDS) |
*Gm. 7: June 19, 8:00 p.m. ET
at Carolina (NBC, CBC, RDS) |
| *if necessary |
|
"We are focused and ready to play a game," he said. "(We) lost in overtime. You have got to move on. I think the big thing you have got to separate from game to game. I think we have been able to do that so far the entire playoffs. Game 2 against Montreal in our building we lost in overtime. (So) you've got to separate Game 2 from Game 3. And if anything, I think the two days off helps us. It's just time away from something that didn't go our way and tough for everybody to handle that night going to bed. But that's so far in the rearview mirror right now."
Oilers forward Ryan Smyth, for one, expects a big effort from Carolina.
"As far as being one win away, this is a childhood dream ? it's just awesome feeling, it's a chance of a lifetime," Smyth said. "Few and far between to get back to a place like this. I mean, motivation factor isn't huge in that area. That's self-explanatory. That's obviously going to be no-brainer to get up for a game like that, but we're really excited. We're really looking forward to the challenge and we don't want to look past Game 6"
"I think we feel good," 'Canes goalie Cam Ward said. "We're excited. You look at the positive, we still have a 3-2 series lead and have an opportunity to close it out here in Edmonton. And I think we are extremely excited. This is the time of year where, you know, fatigue is not an excuse. You have a chance to win the Stanley Cup, fatigue is long from our minds. This is something where you rise to the occasion and feed off the adrenaline."
Minus Weight, the Hurricanes will be forced into a lineup change. Laviolette said he had a number of options.
"We can either insert Chad LaRose or add an additional defensemen," Laviolette said. "Or switch the lineup from there, still insert Chad and add an additional defensemen and take somebody else out.
"As far as Doug coming out of the lineup, obviously it's a tough loss for us," Laviolette continued. "Doug is part of the reason we have gotten this far. If you look back through the playoffs at some of the big plays that he's made and the big goals that he scored or the big passes that he made like only Doug Weight can, he's a big part of it. In saying that, I am not sure that many teams sustained as many injuries as we did through the course of the year. I know some were hit pretty hard with injuries; our team was one of them. We had, I think, close to 270 man games lost through the course of the game, but yet we were always able to maintain a winning attitude and record.
"It didn't seem to matter who was out. We had enough depth and we still believed that we do have enough depth to cover that. I mean we have done this without Erik Cole, who you have heard me say I believe is one of the top power forwards in the game, if not the top power forward, and it's not easy. You can't replace Cole. We won't be able to replace Doug Weight. He's a valuable part of this team. We're going to have to. Somebody else is going to have to step up. We have got lots of centermen that can move around to any position. We played out of position so many times through the course of the year and tried different things and still always seemed to find success with it. The fact that Doug is out, we could move Kevin Adams up or Josef Vasicek into the middle, or Matt Cullen back to the middle. I guess that's a good thing about having six centermen, six or seven centermen on your team is that you have those options."
As for Ward, he is counting the minutes until the puck drops.
"Thirty-three years old and raring to go," he said. "Doesn't get any better than this. If I took my shirt off and you saw what I was working with here, slightly handicapped in the genetics end of it, but I am working with what I have got."
On the other bench, the Oilers are a confident lot, buoyed by staving off elimination in Game 5 and realizing a win at home can force a winner-take-all seventh game.
"Offensively, I think it was definitely a couple of steps forward in that department," center Jarret Stoll said of the 3-2 overtime win in Game 5. "We have to get to (Cam) Ward. We found a way to do it. Got more pucks to the net, more bodies to the net. I think what was even more important was getting tips on that first goal. 'Fernie' (Fernando Pisani) set an example with some tips. There were a number of other opportunities for deflections in front, rebounds in front, which is how we're going to score goals. You have got to go to those tough areas. We did a much better job of that in Game 5. Hopefully, we can continue with that in Game 6.
"I described it before Game 5," Stoll said of the team's mood, "we were just a very loose team having fun, just freewheeling out there. I don't know how that's happening when we are down 3-1 in the series before that game, but we were. That's when we play our best hockey. We have a lot of fun together. Great group of guys. It is coming down to, hopefully, to the last two games of the season. Just a great time of year. We're just a loose group. Always have been. It was a tough time down the stretch making the playoffs where we were a little uptight. Other than that, we play our best hockey when we're loose like that."
|
|
The Oilers are hoping to make the return trip to Raleigh for Monday's potential Game 7.
|
And after being down 3-1, the Oilers will gladly take their chances in a seventh game.
"I think there's a lot of positives from last game on our power play," Stoll said. "You can see we were moving the puck with ? I think moving it quickly is the best way to describe it. Good passes, stuff like that that can beat their good pressure. Only got the one goal, but I think we were a lot better now on the power play. We can definitely take momentum and positives out of that power play into Game 6."
"I would hope so," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "I would hope it's exciting right now. I mean, there's an energy there. There would be an energy in Carolina's room I would imagine today after the disappointment of losing the game at home in Game 5.
"You got to be excited about the chance," MacTavish said. "Still have to win two games, but we have put ourselves in this position, so I feel like the energy is really good. And it has been, really, throughout these playoffs We're in pretty good shape health-wise. I don't think there are too many guys to beat up outside of Roli (goalie Dwayne Roloson), so there should be an energy there."
"Obviously, the adrenaline from Game 5 is there," Smyth said. "Obviously the O.T. winner, shorthanded. And, yeah, the guys are on a high right now. We want to ride that, no question. We know it's not going to be an easy task. We're back here at home. We want to make sure we get the fans going, get them excited, play the hockey that we're capable of playing.
"I thought our last game we really ? everybody stepped up their game. And we really played together as a whole group. And if we can continue that, then that's the game we would like to duplicate. But there's always room for improvement. I think that's the best thing about ? from game to game you can improve and you can get better, and obviously want to take all the positives out of the last game."
