Home-Ice Advantage
Sunday, June 11, 2006

Posted by Kerrzy

A late third period goal Saturday night by the Edmonton Oilers Ryan Smyth negated the possibility of a Carolina Hurricanes sweep and brought the Oilers one step closer to tying the final series of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. Edmonton’s goals came 55:14 apart as two Oilers that hadn’t seen much of the scoresheet lately, Shawn Horcoff and Ryan Smyth, both busted out of their respective slumps when it counted the most. After Carolina’s Rod Brind’amour tied the game up with 9:51 remaining in the third, Edmonton’s Ryan Smyth scored only his second in his last nine games when he dropped a pass to teammate Alex Hemsky and drove to the net, finding himself on the end of a return pass that hit him and bounced past Carolina’s Cam Ward. The goal came with just 2:15 to play, and would seal the deal for the Edmonton Oilers on home ice. Read more...

Horcoff hadn’t scored in Edmonton’s previous seven games and was a combined –5 over the last two, but he factored in early tipping home a Jaroslav Spacek point shot 2:31 into the first frame for his 18th playoff point, good enough for third overall in the league.

Ales Hemsky and Jaroslav Spacek each picked up their first of two assists on the play.

After a six-penalty first period that saw the Hurricanes take a seat four times, the Oilers found themselves in the box for three of the five penalties in the second period, but the score remained 1-0.

With under three minutes to go in the second period though, the Oilers’ Ethan Moreau appeared to shoot one shelf on a sprawled out Cam Ward after a goal-mouth scramble but the play had been whistled down by the ever-animated Mick McGeough before the Moreau shot, which caused tempers to flair.

Nevertheless, the score was still 1-0 heading into the third, which is statistically the Carolina Hurricanes time to shine, and they did just that.

Rod Brind’amour netted his league-leading 12th goal and third of the series at 9:09 of the third period to tie the game at one each, beating the Oilers’ Jussi Markkanen from the slot after Edmonton defenseman Jason Smith blocked a shot right off of his chest.

The Brind’amour goal ties the Ottawa, Ontario, native with Edmonton’s Shawn Horcoff for third in points and the lone assist on the goal ties Carolina’s Cory Stillman with fellow Peterborough Petes alumnus, Eric Staal for the league lead at 22.

The Oilers out-shot the Carolina Hurricanes 30-25 on the night and both teams were shutout on the powerplay, going 0-for-5 and 0-for-7 respectively.

Edmonton will have another chance to win on home ice come Monday when the two teams meet again at Rexall Place for game four of this championship series which again gets going at 6 pm mountain time.

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Jim Kerr