Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish was extremely pleased with the effort put forth by his Oilers to win Game 5 in Raleigh.

Game 5 on everyone's mind
Compiled by Phil Coffey
NHL.com | June 16, 2006

The Edmonton Oilers' overtime victory in Game 5 had a dramatic influence on the 2006 Stanley Cup Final. Here's a review of what was said and some additional comments on the state of the NHL by Commissioner Gary Bettman.

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"Overall, just a general comment about the game, I thought it was a terrific hockey game by both teams. It was, I don't know what it looked like up there, but it was break-neck pace back and forth, and lots of energy, lots of action, lots of chances in both ends. Wildly entertaining game and that's a good frame to put around that one for the NHL. Heckuva hockey game."

-- Oilers coach Craig MacTavish on Game 5's overtime win by Edmonton.

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"I think it will be looked at as all rules will be, to see how it worked. Personally, I don't have a problem with the rule. The fact is, the emphasis is on offense, and if you're stopping play at a critical juncture and the method is by putting the puck into the stands, I don't have a problem with the penalty. Don't do it. And if it means a mistake puts you down a man or an extra man, so be it.

"This is a game of mistakes. The emphasis is on offense. In fact, I suggested to Colie (Campbell), like the rule change made that you can't change your line, you can't change your players on the ice when you ice the puck. I'd like to also see it be considered when the goaltender freezes the puck.

"I don't have any problem with that rule. It's been enforced. And I also like the fact that it's not discretionary. People say, well, it should be whether the intent to shoot it out was there. At that stage of the game, the last thing we want to do is get into intent. You put the puck in the stands from your own end, it's a penalty. I don't have a problem with that at all."

-- NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman supports the enforcement of the rule that calls for a penalty when a team shoots the puck into the stands.

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"The momentum kind of changed a few times in the first period. We regrouped and focused and executed well for 60 minutes. That's something that we have done all through the playoffs, bounced back, have had things maybe not go well for us, we're going to continue to do that."

-- Oilers captain Jason Smith on Game 5.

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"We're going to go out there and win, that's the bottom line. We're up, we have one game to win, obviously, and looking forward to doing it."

-- Hurricanes winger Cory Stillman on Game 6.

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"Feels great right now but obviously we realize it's still a long road ahead, but first step that we need to take. We need a couple more wins but obviously it's a huge boost for us."

-- Oilers center Shawn Horcoff on what the Oilers still have to do after Game 5.

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"Bottom line is we're up 3-2, we didn't want to go back there, that's for sure. But we have got to go back there and fight."

-- Hurricanes forward Kevyn Adams after Wednesday's Game 5 overtime loss to the Oilers.

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"Game 5 is always a monumental game in the course of a series. Normally you are 2-2 going in and we have been in two instances 2-2 and given ourselves an opportunity. We have got a comfort level on the road and we have all year long. We have been a good road team. This time of year, when you are in the opposition's building, it's never an easy task, but we have confidence in our ability to win on the road and we're going to have to do that again."

-- Craig MacTavish on the importance of winning Game 5.

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"Yeah, this is the kind of hockey that we need to play. I don't know if it's because we had a long layoff, maybe we're getting our legs now, but I thought we played four lines and we skated real well and clogged up the neutral zone. We played good road hockey and we have to go home and play a similar style at home."

Quote of the Week: "We set an all-time attendance record this year. Our local ratings are up overall in the U.S. markets. So the issue that people point to if they are looking to take a shot at us is how we are doing on national television. This year we changed partners. On the cable side, we gave up some distribution in order to get better coverage. That's a trade that I would make again if I had to, or had to make that choice again, because we love the way OLN is covering us. "We love the fact that with the increased coverage, particularly in the first three rounds of the playoffs with the six-hours-a-night, wall-to-wall coverage, we, in effect, started getting traction, and I think over time, you're going to see the build. And the best evidence of that is when we started with OLN last summer they were in 64 million homes and as we sit here tonight, they are in 70 million homes. It will continue to grow. You know, nobody was suggesting that under our past television relationship everything was wonderful. We needed a partner who was going to treat us with greater importance than we were getting. That's what we're getting with OLN, and it will grow. I just think people need to be patient. We demonstrated over the last couple of years that when you are patient, you can bring the right business results to what takes place in the league, and we think over time, this will have turned out to be an opportune moment for us to go in the direction that we went in." -- NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the NHL's TV situation.

-- Shawn Horcoff on seeking more of the same effort from Game 5 going forward.

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"He's coming at me hard. I didn't see him until the last second. I needed to make a play and I didn't. ? I have to get over it. We're still ahead in the series and we got a chance to win in Edmonton and we're going to do that."

-- Carolina's Eric Staal on losing the puck to Fernando Pisani, who went in to score a shorthanded game-winning goal in overtime of Game 5.

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"Certainly a difficult situation. You never want to be in that situation, but you know there's no way that I am going to change my game or change my decision making because of it. You have to play with your heart you have to play solid and if you get in the situation where you get caught, they are going to call penalties. That's the game today. They are going to call them. You just hope they are not at the wrong times. We weren't having much success with the penalty kill tonight. So I really didn't know what to think when I was in the box. Certainly a huge relief when the goal went in."

-- Oilers defenseman Steve Staios, whose penalty in overtime allowed teammate Fernando Pisani to score the winning, shorthanded goal in OT in Game 5.

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"I think the biggest thing is we wanted to get off to a better start. We certainly did that in getting that quick goal. And just try to leave it all out on the ice and not coming in the locker room and saying coulda, shoulda, woulda. Throughout the course of the game we continued to press for the issue and not back off. Fernie gets a big goal as a result of that."

-- Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger on the team's mindset heading into Game 5.

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"We were thinking about trying to get back to Edmonton for Game 6 and certainly in the locker room heading into overtime we wanted to leave it all out there and make sure we were playing our system, playing within the game plan and not getting too aggressive, but at the same time we didn't want to sit back. We wanted to continue to take the play to them as we did throughout the bulk of the third period, and it's huge going back home. Now we have got to go back. You know what the crowd is going to be like back there for Game 6. We have to feed off this win and feed off the crowd and make sure we continue to play that type of game that we had today."

-- Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger after Game 5.

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"He's such a great breakaway player, he has got a lot of variety when he comes in there and he's scored a lot of big goals for us in these playoffs. If there's one guy we want going in on that one, it's him. He has got nerves of steel. Just gotten better as the season went on and in the playoffs just playing at a level that's pretty impressive and was happy to see him get it."

-- Oilers center Michael Peca on Fernando Pisani, the hero of Game 5.

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"We just wanted to give ourselves a chance, you know, hopefully push it back home, but we didn't want to get -- look past Game 5 and we wanted to go period by period and obviously right from the outset we got a goal at 16 seconds or something. It was great start for us."

-- Oilers forward Ryan Smyth on Game 5.

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"Obviously the way the series is going right now, the amount of penalties, the number of penalties, is going to favor the team that's got a special team advantage and that's Carolina. So we felt really strong and comfortable all night in our five-on-five game. Just the penalties, I think enabled them to get the lead certainly in the first period. They capitalized well, they got a good power play and a good penalty kill unit."

-- Craig MacTavish on his team's need to play the Hurricanes 5-on-5.

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Material from personal interviews, wire services, newspaper, and league and team sources was used in this report.

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