EDMONTON -- Down two games in the Stanley Cup Final and returning home to Edmonton, the Oilers realized they had to change the way they were playing. The things they worked on in practice Friday made all the difference in Game 3's 2-1 victory.
The Oilers knew they had to control Carolina Hurricanes captain Rod Brind'Amour, eliminate odd-man rushes, win more faceoffs and shut down the Carolina power play. They did all those things and were still hard-pressed to gain the victory. Although the Oilers were outscored 10-1 in Games 1 and 2 after taking a 3-0 lead in Game 1, they insisted the Stanley Cup Finalists were closer in ability than it appeared in the 5-0 Game 2 loss Wednesday. They proved it in Game 3.
"Edmonton deserves to be here. I think we deserve to be here," Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said after the game. "I think you get two hockey teams that are going to play good hockey. Even at the end of the first period, the chances were fairly close, probably four or five each apiece. They got a redirect on one of the pucks and 1-0 lead. The atmosphere was a great atmosphere for hockey."
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Schedule / Links:
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| Gm. 1: CAR 5, EDM 4 | Photos |
| Gm. 2: CAR 5, EDM 0 | Photos |
| Gm. 3: EDM 2, CAR 1 | Photos |
Gm. 4: June 12, 8:00 p.m. ET
at Edmonton (NBC, CBC, RDS) |
Gm. 5: June 14, 8:00 p.m. ET
at Carolina (NBC, CBC, RDS) |
*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 |
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"Especially in front of their net, they did a real good job of getting stick on stick, stick on puck, not making opportunities easy," Laviolette said. "When we did have some good quality chances in front, (Jussi) Markkanen made big saves for them."
"We took something away from them," Oilers defenseman Steve Staios said. "We limited them in the neutral zone and that helped eliminate the odd-man rushes that had hurt us. They lulled us in Games 1 and 2 into exchanging rushes with them. They were able to find the seams in our defense in Carolina and we cut that off tonight. It was a great game for our confidence and it will make us tougher. That's the way we've been successful in the playoffs. The better we were in the neutral zone, the more we cut off their offensive chances."
"We know they're very dangerous on the rush," said Oilers assistant coach Charlie Huddy. "They've got speed and they've got skill and that's how they create their offensive opportunities. They use speed through the neutral zone to gain our zone and they look for the cross-ice passes. We tried to slow them down and take that opportunity away from them."
As Dorothy said, "There's no place like home," and that was another key to the victory. When Carolina had the home-ice advantage of placing its players on the ice after Edmonton did, Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette matched Brind'Amour against Edmonton center Shawn Horcoff. In Edmonton, it's different. MacTavish put veteran Mike Peca, a defensive specialist, out against Brind'Amour in seven of his first nine shifts and then regularly through the remainder of the game.
Brind'Amour was less effective and less prominent than in Carolina. Peca won nine of his first 10 faceoffs, not all against Brind'Amour, who was only 4-for-14 at that point. Peca won 71 percent of his faceoffs, or 15-of-21. Brind'Amour dropped to 37 percent, winning only 10-of-21. Horcoff, relieved of his battle against the more experienced Brind'Amour, had an outstanding night, winning 61 percent, or 11-of-18.
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Jussi Markkanen's goaltending was the difference in Game 3.
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"Mike Peca is the kind of player, the bigger the game, the better he plays," Staios said. "We've come to expect that of him. He's showing in these playoffs why he is one of the top players in this League."
When Horcoff opened the scoring at 2:31 of the first period with a 20-foot deflection of Jaroslav Spacek's shot from just inside the blue line, Brind'Amour was on the bench and Kevyn Adams was the opposing center.
Brind'Amour was clearly designated to take the brunt of Edmonton's hard-checking and he took a pounding all night long. The Carolina captain was working along the boards in the Edmonton zone when Raffi Torres pinned him on the right side, making Brind'Amour a sitting duck for Chris Pronger's hard check at 4:20 in the middle period. Brind'Amour was getting banged around between a pair of Edmonton players just before he crosschecked Staios face-first to the ice at 6:48 of the second period and was penalized. Ethan Moreau flattened Brind'Amour during a Carolina power play with about 8:15 remaining in the second period. As he went to his bench, Brind'Amour was decked again and his helmet skidded across the ice.
Fernando Pisani figured it was his turn to deliver the Edmonton message at 1:40 of the third period when he hammered Brind'Amour as he waited for a cross-goal pass. The Carolina captain skidded on the seat of his pants into the boards behind the goal line.
"We were not passing up any opportunities to punish a guy that's playing 25 minutes a game," said Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish. "He played 24-odd minutes tonight, I think. You always want to make those as tough a minute as possible, and when you see Rod coming down, you want to make sure that you are finishing your checks. I thought we did a pretty good job of that tonight."
It's harder to take away Brind'Amour's will to win than with other athletes. He got the tying goal at 9:09 of the third period. Brind'Amour, about 30 feet from Jussi Markkanen's goal and to the goalie's right, took a goal-line pass from Cory Stillman and fired a shot high off Jason Smith's body. The rebound came back to Brind'Amour and he fired his 12th goal of the Playoffs past Markkanen at 9:09.
Ryan Smyth's game-winning goal was a signature Smyth play. He picked up the puck inside the Carolina blue line, dropped a pass to Ales Hemsky, who fired a long shot that bounced off Smyth and Carolina goalie Cam Ward and trickled into the net. The play was reviewed and the winning goal stood.
"Ryan wears his heart on his sleeve and he goes to the net like no one else in the League and he gets rewarded for it," Staios said. "That's the type of game we want to get ourselves into."
"Vintage Ryan Smyth goal, and it couldn't have been prettier in our estimation," MacTavish said. "We got the puck to the net. He went there and just had the composure in that situation to stand in there. ... It's not the first time he's been in that situation or the first time he went to the net."
"When I got across the line I dropped it to Hemmer on that play, he just fed it through, and it went off of Cam Ward and popped up and I guess it hit my shaft," Smyth said. "I don't remember it hitting my shaft. All I remember is it hit my chest and it crossed the line and obviously it was, you know, a gritty goal but hey, it counts. I didn't intend on throwing my body into the net. I know I got hit from behind and there was no motion as far as me pushing the puck in the net the wrong way."
It goes without saying that the Oilers needed better team defense and better goaltending than they got in Game 2. Markkanen had a big night, making 25 saves and living up to his reputation as a good puckhandling goalie.
"He played incredibly well, I thought," MacTavish said. "It was great for him. I was really happy for him. I was happy for us that he gave us that type of effort in the net. We certainly needed it. We felt like we could have been up a couple after the first period but we weren't. Then we got protecting the lead and they are a tough team. They are not here by coincidence. And he had to be real sharp in the third period.
"They took it to us early on in the third period while we're protecting the lead. Once they tied it, we got back on our game and they got a little less aggressive. But it was a great performance. Jussi handled the puck well, set the puck well for the defense, got to a lot of rims and played very well."
MacTavish was pleased that so many elements of the game plan were effective.
"I thought we did a better job getting pucks to the net," he said. "We had, I don't know what the final total was, 30-something shots. We did a good job, a much better job of that tonight than we did certainly in Game 2. Now we just have to put everything together in Game 4 and get it back to even. The changes we made on our penalty kill really impacted the game tonight. I thought our penalty kill was real good, where we were more disciplined in the amount of penalties that we took. So those things helped, for sure."
