Kudos...
…to the Carolina Hurricanes, for winning the 2006 Stanley Cup. There is no championship in professional sports harder to win then Lord Stanley’s Cup. The NHL playoffs are a three-month test of endurance and heart. No team without either quality in abundance will survive to advance. But the real story of the 2006 playoffs has been the Edmonton Oilers. This team wasn’t even expected to make the playoffs, and suck in as the #8 seed in the Western Conference. They fell into an 0-2 game deficit in their first playoff series with the NHL-leading Detroit Red Wings, favorites to win it all. But they came back behind the goaltending of 31-year old journeyman Dwayne Roloson, and a while lot of endurance and heart. As the eighth seed, they had to play the best remaining team in each successive round. They beat the 2004 Stanley Cup finalist Calgary Flames in the second round, and knocked off the surprisingly successful sixth seed Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the conference championship to advance to the Stanley Cup finals.
In the NHL championship, they lost Game 1 and Roloson to a knee injury. The Hurricanes wiped them out in Game 2, 5-0, as third-string goalie Jussi Markkanen tried to fill Roloson skates. Markkanen came around in Game 3 in Edmonton, but the Oilers lost Game 4 on home ice to fall into a seemingly insurmountable 1-3 hole. They returned to North Carolina for Game 5, with the Cup on the line, and ended regulation time tied at 3-3. Overtime in the playoffs is sudden death, where the first team to score wins. Almost off the bat, the Oilers take a penalty and put the Hurricanes on the power play, where they have been deadly on their home ice. But out of nowhere, Fernando Pisani, a young, heretofore undistinguished Oiler who became the playoff’s leading scorer, stole a pass and scored on a breakaway to rescue his team from extinction. The revitalized Oilers whacked the suddenly old, tired and slow Hurricanes 4-0 in Game 6 in Edmonton, and appeared to have all the momentum heading into Game 7.
But it was not to be.
The veteran Hurricanes came out and outplayed the young Oilers with the championship on the line, scoring two goals in the first two periods. They then settled into the NHL equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard: the left-wing lock defense. This style of defending won the New Jersey Devils two Stanley Cups, but has also come to represent all that is wrong with the game in comparison with the wide-open, exciting international version of ice hockey, played on larger rinks with less physical play and more athletic prowess. The Oilers nevertheless managed to fight back with a goal of their own in the third. As the clock wound down, they pulled their goalie for a sixth attacker, but were unable to penetrate the stout Hurricane defense. Inevitably, they lost the puck to the Hurricanes, who scored a back-breaking, open-net, game-ensuring goal with a minute-and-a-half left. The Oilers finally had dug the one hole from which they could not get out.
So, congratulations to the Hurricanes, but for my money, the real winners were the young Oilers, who overcame so much to come within a game of doing something no #8 seed ever had. The Milk Brother's hat is off to them.
Update: My bad. The Milk Brother confused the neutral zone trap, used by the New Jersey Devils to win a couple of Stanley Cups and turn an exciting game into something as entertaining as grass growing, with the left-wing lock, used by the Detroit Red Wings in the late 90’s to win a couple of Stanley Cups and turn an exciting sport into something as entertaining as listening to fingernails on a blackboard. So, now you know.
In the NHL championship, they lost Game 1 and Roloson to a knee injury. The Hurricanes wiped them out in Game 2, 5-0, as third-string goalie Jussi Markkanen tried to fill Roloson skates. Markkanen came around in Game 3 in Edmonton, but the Oilers lost Game 4 on home ice to fall into a seemingly insurmountable 1-3 hole. They returned to North Carolina for Game 5, with the Cup on the line, and ended regulation time tied at 3-3. Overtime in the playoffs is sudden death, where the first team to score wins. Almost off the bat, the Oilers take a penalty and put the Hurricanes on the power play, where they have been deadly on their home ice. But out of nowhere, Fernando Pisani, a young, heretofore undistinguished Oiler who became the playoff’s leading scorer, stole a pass and scored on a breakaway to rescue his team from extinction. The revitalized Oilers whacked the suddenly old, tired and slow Hurricanes 4-0 in Game 6 in Edmonton, and appeared to have all the momentum heading into Game 7.
But it was not to be.
The veteran Hurricanes came out and outplayed the young Oilers with the championship on the line, scoring two goals in the first two periods. They then settled into the NHL equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard: the left-wing lock defense. This style of defending won the New Jersey Devils two Stanley Cups, but has also come to represent all that is wrong with the game in comparison with the wide-open, exciting international version of ice hockey, played on larger rinks with less physical play and more athletic prowess. The Oilers nevertheless managed to fight back with a goal of their own in the third. As the clock wound down, they pulled their goalie for a sixth attacker, but were unable to penetrate the stout Hurricane defense. Inevitably, they lost the puck to the Hurricanes, who scored a back-breaking, open-net, game-ensuring goal with a minute-and-a-half left. The Oilers finally had dug the one hole from which they could not get out.
So, congratulations to the Hurricanes, but for my money, the real winners were the young Oilers, who overcame so much to come within a game of doing something no #8 seed ever had. The Milk Brother's hat is off to them.
Update: My bad. The Milk Brother confused the neutral zone trap, used by the New Jersey Devils to win a couple of Stanley Cups and turn an exciting game into something as entertaining as grass growing, with the left-wing lock, used by the Detroit Red Wings in the late 90’s to win a couple of Stanley Cups and turn an exciting sport into something as entertaining as listening to fingernails on a blackboard. So, now you know.