Edmonton Sun June 5, 2006

Oil's well... that ends well, so imagine if they win it!
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun



RALEIGH, N.C. -- You wondered if you'd never see the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup final again?
It's been so long? An eternity? You waited for forever?
Whoa. Don't go there.
When the Stanley Cup final plays at Rexall Place for Games 3 & 4, maybe Edmonton fans ought not express those views with all the hockey people and media in town.
It's been 16 years. Only 16 years. Fifteen seasons if you factor in the lockout.
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't been in a final since '67. The Ottawa Senators have never been in one. Nor San Jose, Columbus, Nashville or Phoenix.
The Oilers have a chance to win a sixth Cup.
The Chicago Blackhawks haven't won one since '61, the Boston Bruins since '72 and the Philadelphia Flyers since '75.
Ottawa, Vancouver, St. Louis, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Washington, Phoenix, Carolina, San Jose, Anaheim, Columbus, Nashville, Florida and Minnesota have never won one. That's one short of half the teams in the league.
This is Edmonton's seventh time in the final since the Oilers came into the NHL in 1979-80. In that span the New York Islanders have been in five, the New Jersey Devils in four and the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, Calgary Flames and Flyers in three.
PLAYOFF GAME NO. 250?
In that same span, the Oilers have won five Cups, the Islanders four, New Jersey, Colorado, Pittsburgh and Montreal two and the New York Rangers, Calgary and Tampa Bay one.
Those are the biggies.
The NHL doesn't keep "Since The Oilers Came Into The League" stats. But the NHL's Benny Ercolani, with the aid of Elias Sports Bureau, went out of his way to produce a set for the purposes of this piece.
The Oilers, if the series goes six, will play their 250th playoff game. Game 5 will do it if you count the night the lights went out in Boston and the game had to be replayed.
With their success in getting to the Stanley Cup final this year, the Oilers have put themselves back on top of the big picture during their term as a team in the league.
In the same span the Philadelphia Flyers have played 248, Montreal Canadiens 245. Toronto has played 182, Calgary 174, Vancouver 148 and Ottawa 79.
The Oilers, since they came into the league, have won 149 playoff games. In that same span the Canadiens have won 133, the Flyers 129 and the Detroit Red Wings 125. You get the idea.
And here's the real idea.
There's no reason the team from the Heartland of Hockey, the franchise from the City of Champions, can't keep the lead in most of those categories for the foreseeable future because now, with the new collective bargaining agreement, there IS a future.
To speak to all that is GM Kevin Lowe, who has a claim to fame he seldom mentions.
"I'm proud to say I've been there for every one of those playoff games," he said.
"The only four years I wasn't with the Oilers was when I went to play for the Rangers and we missed the playoffs for four straight years."
Now that they're back on top of those tables, Lowe thinks the Oilers can stay there in most categories.
"I don't see why not," he said.
"With the competition, you've seen the parity. Now the focus is on just getting into the playoffs, best evidenced by Vancouver.
'NOT A SLAM DUNK'
"It's not a slam dunk for any team now. I picked Vancouver as the best team in our conference at the start of the season and they didn't even make the playoffs.
"It's a lot harder to win the Stanley Cup now than it was even in the '80s. First of all, there are nine more teams. In the Smythe Division all we had to do was make sure we weren't the worst team."
There will likely never be another dynasty. The trick now is to be ultra competitive and put yourself in position to do what they're doing this year on an annual basis. They have the CBA and the talent and depth in the organization to do that.
"We really like our young players. We have good flexibility for the future.
"Chris Pronger is in the middle of his best years. Ryan Smyth has lot of good years ahead.
"Shawn Horcoff is just coming into them. Jarret Stoll and Ales Hemsky are right there, coming into their careers, too. I hope this experience will validate those guys. That always helps with confidence.
"I don't think the character of anybody on this team would lead them to be 'We got to the finals last year and don't have to put the work' types of players.
"Now they know what it takes.
"They're getting a taste of it, enjoying it and will be wanting to get back there."
Imagine if they win it!

Al Strachan in Today's Paper

NHL needs three-point victories

Now that the Maple Leafs are trying to claw their way back into the playoff race, the inequity of the points system is becoming apparent to some fans.
They're checking the scores and noticing that some nights, two teams battling the Leafs for the final playoff spot are both getting points -- even when they're playing each other.
The situation is not new to the NHL. But this year, with so many close races, it's becoming more of a matter for discussion.
And discussed it will be. This summer, there will be extensive reviews of the significant rule changes that were introduced after the lockout. By extension, some of the more established rules will come under review as well.
REWARDS SUCCESS
There are those who want to do away with the point that is awarded to a team that extends the game past regulation time. They say it rewards failure.
In fact, it rewards success. If a weak team has managed to stay equal to a superior team for 60 minutes, it is granted a point for its efforts.
It's nice to be able to sit up on your pedestal and sniff that if you can't win in overtime, you should go home empty-handed. But in the real world, hockey has to sell itself.
If a team is not one of the league's powerhouses but manages to hold off the league leader for 60 minutes, its fans expect to see some sort of reward. In sports, you're selling hope, and if the hope of a single point is there, you've got more to sell.
The answer is not to eliminate the point for a regulation-time tie. It is to award three points for a regulation-time victory.
The concept has been studied by the league and was ever so close to becoming a reality last summer. But at the last minute, the governors shot it down. It's quite likely that this summer, they may have a change of heart.
Because the NHL is run for the good of the weakest teams, the concept of keeping a point for a regulation tie is not going away. But for the sake of consistency, the same number of points should be available in every game.
You get three if you win in regulation time; and two if you win in extra time, whether it be during the overtime period or the shootout.
That approach significantly changes the approach of the scoreboard watchers. Now, if the teams your heroes are battling for a playoff spot go into overtime, you can gain ground on both of them by winning your next game in regulation.
Suppose, for example, that Atlanta, Toronto and the New York Islanders are in a three-way tie for eighth place. Atlanta beats the Islanders in a shootout. Under the existing situation, if the Leafs win their next game in regulation, they stay even with Atlanta and gain one lonely point on the Islanders.
But under the three-point situation, that same Leafs win would give them a two-point boost over the Islanders and one over Atlanta.
The three-point system would please both camps in the controversy. Those who want to see consistency would get it because you would no longer be awarding three points for some games and two for others.
At the same time, those who say the league is rewarding losers would gain a degree of satisfaction.
A team would still get its point for taking the game into overtime, but at the same time, it would be punished for not having won in regulation time.
The feeling among those who voted down the concept last summer was that if three points were at stake, coaches would resort to a trapping game to hang on to a third-period lead.
There is some truth to that. But if you believe coaches have that mindset, then you also have to accept that they'll resort to a trapping game to get the sure point if they're tied in the third period.
And for every coach who tries to cling to a late lead, there will be a coach who opens up to get those three big points.
Did anyone think of that?

What the hell was that.....

abomination of an NHL referred game, how can the league allow bush league phantom calls like those in the third period of the Flames - Nucks game tonight? It's one thing to have a crackdown, which I support, it's another to be incompetent and cost teams like the Oilers and Flames like they did tonight by gifting the Canucks two undeserved points....

Why all the uproar...

over Vancouver fans booing Team USA during the recent World Junior hockey tournament? These are the same fans who first made a name for themselves booing Team Canada during the Summit Series in 1972, the same fans who gave Todd Bertuzzi multiple standing ovations while calling Steve Moore a coward, and yet the can't see the irony when they mercilessly boo Jack Johnson for an alleged elbow on Steve Downie.

Observations from the first half of the NHL Season

Bertuzzi

How curious that Markus Naslund would question Steve Moore's character in the media yesterday. With Moore filing a lawsuit against the Canucks organization for the planning and forethought that went into the attack, the most damning evidence and the most obvious lack of character was shown by the Canucks themselves. If the legal hit that started the chain of events was so egregious, if the Canucks felt it was so vital to the psyche of the team to exact revenge, why wait? Why hide behind the Instigator Penalty? Naslund's alleged injury was so "damaging" to the team that it wasn't worth a 10 minute misconduct?
As far as character is concerned, the Canucks played 60 minutes in Colorado shortly after the attack and not so much as a whimper was heard from any of them. They waited almost 2 full games and needed the security of a home crowd before confronting Steve. Nice courage, ladies.

Bravo Gary Bettman!!

Sincerely, I could not have been happier with yesterdays news. The fact that the union made the drastic concession that it would accept a salary cap made Gary's next move obvious, and I'm surprised most people missed it. If you spend all this time and effort preparing for Armageddon, if you waste the majority of a season and the damage is already done, why settle? There is absolutely no reason to accept anything but total concession by the players now, and the only way to make all the pain worth it is to succeed unconditionally which the players made inevitable by blinking first.
As for all the bleating that maybe Gary should have been "nicer" in his final letter to the union, wipe your noses and grow up. The union pushed the league into this wasted season, the union members and their apologists are on an all out personal assault against Gary, for them to want a little sugar now is pathetic. I support the owners 100 percent and will be the first one in the door if there are games with replacement players in the fall. Gary is the one continually going to bat for this market and I will repay him in every way I can, not the bastards in the union who every single day say the league would be better if the league contracted some of it's weaker (read small market) teams.
It looks so good on the players; I hope they wear it well!!

Asterisks

The last year or so the discussion around Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco has inevitably led to the topic of records and how the milestones of the past should be preserved against the onslaught of "science". On a recent Dan Patrick show callers unanimously voiced that steroids were worse for the game than gambling because as purists the lore and the records were the most sacred part of the game for them, which is ludicrous.
As in every sport, there can be no logical comparison between eras. In hockey for example, athletes of today use supplements, off-ice training and conditioning, and composite equipment that no player of the 30's or 40's could ever dream of.
The old league featured six teams of approximately seventy of the best Canadian players who through word of mouth had the opportunity to be approached by a major league club to try out for the team. The league of today has the best players on the planet identified and groomed before their bantam age. Players today travel on charter airplanes and stay in the best hotels, while players of the past traveled by train in smoky berths.
The contrasts are endless, and in baseball they are even more stark. Astroturf, designated hitters, no standards for park size, interleague play, segregation; how can anyone intelligently compare Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds or even Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez with a straight face?