News

They needed a miracle and once upon a time, about three years ago, J.S. Giguère gave them one. Giguère, playing goal for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, was virtually impenetrable for much of the 2003 playoffs and when it was all over, he received the Conn Smythe trophy as most valuable player, even though his team lost the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final.

Down 3-0 to the Edmonton Oilers and on the brink of playoff elimination, the Ducks went back to Giguère on Thursday night in an attempt to change the momentum of the Western Conference final – and to some degree, the strategy worked.

The Ducks came out swarming and left Giguère with little to do off the start. They managed as many goals in the opening period – three – as the Oilers managed shots and went on to record a wild 6-3 win in the fourth game of the best-of-seven Western Conference final.

Game 5 goes Saturday night in Anaheim, with Edmonton's lead now down to 3-1. The defeat ended the Oilers' playoff winning streak at seven games, dating back to the second game of their second-round series against the San Jose Sharks.

In a rollicking game that saw the Ducks almost give it away in the middle period, Joffrey Lupul scored the pivotal goal with 1:38 remaining in the second, as the Ducks were desperately hanging to what had suddenly become a slim one-goal margin.

On the play, ex-Oiler Todd Marchant scrambled the face-off with Shawn Horcoff, enabling Lupul to scoot in and golf a shot high over goaltender Dwayne Roloson's outstretched glove, putting the Ducks back in front by two and taking some of the life out of the energized sellout crowd at Rexall Place, many of whom came, bearing brooms, hoping the Oilers would sweep the series.

“Lupul was the only guy with his eye on the puck,” said Oilers' coach Craig MacTavish. “He came in and dug it out of the traffic and put it upstairs. It was a real goal-scorer's shot. We didn't mount much in the third period as well.

“We got a lesson. I think we've been seduced by getting away from our aggressiveness, because we've had success sitting back. Once we started to play in the second period, we seemingly got some of our game back. So we got the lesson, it was expensive. They're obviously a confident group leaving here. It's up to us to answer back in Anaheim on Saturday.”

Lupul also scored the clinching goal into the empty net with 1:10 remaining.

The Oilers' best third-period chance came when they were awarded a 73-second two-man advantage with 8:26 to go, but failed to capitalize.

Giguère wasn't great, but except for a brief second-period lapse, the team in front of him was. The Ducks clearly followed their one-game-at-a-time mantra, and left nothing on the table. They followed up Tuesday night's four-goal, third-period outburst with a three-goal, first-period onslaught in which they kept Roloson under constant siege.

Giguère looked exhausted at times during the game and kept going to the bench for oxygen. He described his own play as “average,” but promised to be better on Saturday.

“He hasn't played in a long time,” said Lupul of Giguère. “More than anything, he battled tonight. He gave us everything he had. I just think you'll start to see him get sharper and sharper the more he plays. It was great to see him in there.”

Giguère said: “It's a little bit difficult. It's obviously not the best situation when you haven't played for a month. It doesn't matter if you ride the bike real hard or practice real hard, nothing duplicates playing the game. It was easy to be motivated for this game. It was an important game for us. I was really happy to get the call tonight.”

How dominant were the Ducks in support of Giguère? They managed 25 first-period shots on Roloson, five more than any opponent had ever managed against the Oilers in their previous 243 playoff games and the second highest single-period total of the post-expansion era. The Ducks actually got a fourth shot past Roloson, but the Oilers were saved by the referee's whistle.

The scariest part from Edmonton's perspective was that Roloson was their best player by far in that one-sided opening period. If he hadn't been absolutely on his game, the Ducks could have blasted five or six past him. The Oilers killed off the first of the three, two-man disadvantages they faced in the opening period, a 69-second five-on-three that featured some inspired penalty killing by Chris Pronger and Horcoff, plus a strong pad save by Roloson against the Ducks' Andy McDonald.

Sadly, that was the only point in the first period where the Oilers resembled the team that had rattled off 11 previous playoff wins this spring.

To say they came out flat would be an understatement.

“If we spent more time in their zone territorially, maybe we could have taken advantage of a guy who hasn't played that much,” assessed Oilers' defenceman Steve Staois. “We've just got to get more pucks to the net. Our strength is our forecheck and the way we skate. We've got to get back to doing that.”

Giguère, making his first start since the fourth game of the opening round, looked awfully jittery, but the Oilers couldn't take advantage. They did get some action around his goal-crease early on, but couldn't get a shot directly on goal. For example, Fernando Pisani tried a wrap-around in the first 15 seconds that he lost off his stick and watched as the puck slid helplessly into the corner.

Anaheim's lead was 3-0 after 20 minutes, thanks to a pair of goals from Dustin Penner and one from Ryan Getzlaf, both NHL rookies. Getzlaf's goal came on a two-man advantage late in a period where the shots finished 25-3 for Anaheim.

The momentum started to shift early in the second when the Oilers finally got on the board on a power-play goal from Marc-Andre Bergeron. Ruslan Salei got that one back for the Ducks about two minutes later, restoring Anaheim's three-goal lead, but the Oilers weren't done yet.

Goals by Ryan Smyth and Georges Laracque brought them back to within one at the 10:01 mark of the second, at which point Ducks' coach Randy Carlyle called a timeout to steady his team.

Giguère gave up goals on the sixth, seventh and ninth shots he faced and Carlyle had to be thinking about making a switch at that point. However, he stuck with him and Giguère settled down to make a couple of solid saves before the period ended. The Oilers successfully killed off another five-on-three power-play – their fourth of the night – just before Lupul scored his team-leading eighth to restore Anaheim's two-goal edge after 40 minutes.

“This is the Western Conference final and to sweep is what we wanted to do, but a difficult task,” said Oilers' centre Jarrett Stoll. “We just have to ramp up our game. We're confident we can do it. This is a nice wake-up call for us. We'll pick it up and get better where we need to be better.”

Carlyle said he thought long and hard about making the switch in goal.

“The one thing we've been confident with is, our goaltenders have provided us with a level of goaltending that we could have success and it didn't matter which one,” said Carlyle. “[Ilya] Bryzgalov had stolen the net in the Calgary series and he won three straight games by shutouts. It didn't take Einstein to say, ‘stick with him.' Then we got into this series. I didn't think he played poorly, but we weren't getting results. So you always want to make sure you give your veteran guy an opportunity to prove himself. I thought he came in and did the job for us.”

As promised, the Oilers made two line-up changes for the game, with Raffi Torres and Radek Dvorak both returning to the active roster, Torres after missing two games with the flu, Dvorak after recovering from a knee injury.

“Someone's going to come back from 3-0,” said Lupul. “Maybe it'll be us.”

THE BIG NUMBER

25 – First-period shots by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the most ever surrendered by the Edmonton Oilers in an NHL playoff game. The previous high came back on May 8, 1992, when they gave up 20 shots in the opening period to the Vancouver Canucks, a game the Oilers eventually won 3-2.

THE BIG PLAY

Right after Dwayne Roloson made an excellent pad save on Robbie Niedermayer, the Ducks regained possession of the puck, with Andy McDonald setting up Ryan Getzlaf for a one-timed power-play goal with 42 seconds to go in the first period, increasing Anaheim's lead to 3-0.

THE BIG MISTAKE

The Oilers took five first-period penalties as opposed to zero by the Ducks, but the worst breakdown in discipline came early in the second when Ales Hemsky took a hooking penalty with the Oilers enjoying a five-on-three manpower advantage.