In a quirky way, it made sense that the Edmonton Oilers tied up their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series with the Detroit Red Wings on a goal by Brad Winchester yesterday.
Who better to pull the string on a crucial, game-winning goal than a man who'd spent the season as a yo-yo? The 25-year-old rookie is on his fourth call-up this season from the American Hockey League Hamilton Bulldogs and was inserted into the lineup on a hunch by Oiler coach Craig MacTavish after watching his hard work at practice.
It was the first goal of Winchester's National Hockey League career and propelled the stubborn, upstart Oilers to a 4-2 win over the Red Wings. The split in the first two games at Detroit puts the Oilers in an advantageous position. Three of the next four games will be on Edmonton ice. The series will resume at the Rexall Centre with games tomorrow and Thursday.
"Something clicked when I saw him in practice," MacTavish said. "I remembered that the last three times he'd dressed for us, we'd won. Now it's four for four."
Winchester played on a line with veteran Ryan Smyth and Shawn Horcoff, played 16 shifts, logged two hits with his 6-foot-5 frame and scored with his only shot on goal.
"After the Saturday practice," MacTavish said, "I talked with Horc and Smitty, and they were receptive to the idea. I wanted to make sure they were comfortable, first and foremost. They pulled him aside and told him their expectations."
It was everything Winchester could have expected. He collected the puck as the first souvenir of his NHL career, after Chris Pronger stood up at the Detroit blueline and forced a turnover from Jason Willians on an attempted breakout.
Pronger fed the puck across to Winchester in the high slot.
The goal was typical of Edmonton's tough underdog play in the series to date. Unable to match Detroit's President's Trophy-winning talent, the Oilers are winning battles along the boards and in front of the net.
Goalie Dwayne Roloson is making saves, and although he's giving up tantalizing rebounds, the Edmonton defence is doing a good job of keeping the Red Wings off his doorstep.
"I thought in the second period, for the first 15 minutes, that was as good as we've played," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "I thought we were starting to go and then we turned over a couple of pucks and they were better than us -- from that point -- the rest of the game. After they went up 3-2, they had more jump than we did.
"In the second period, for the first time, we were moving the puck . . . then came the turnovers. Give them credit. They caused the turnovers."
Before the first game of the series, a Joe Louis patron observed the return of playoff hockey to town by tossing an octopus on the ice.
Yesterday's second game saw some Alberta fans taking a poke at the Detroit tradition, hurling two large chunks of beef onto the ice.
The reference was to Alberta beef, or perhaps to the old "Where's the beef" marketing slogan and a challenge to the Red Wings to cope with Edmonton's neutral-zone trap and physical play.
Indeed, the Oilers clogged up the middle ice and the Red Wings needed to use a dump-and-chase strategy to get by the trap. The Wings outshot the Oilers 35-24, but as in the first match, most of those came from bad angles.
Babcock said his defence wasn't as effective as Edmonton's. The Oilers were able to get much closer to Manny Legace's net, and the Detroit defence gave the puck away seven times.
The Oilers were the first to score, with the teams playing four skaters a side. Pronger scored his second of the series with a blast from the blueline that eluded Legace, who was distracted after Horcoff swept through the front of his crease.
The Red Wings drew even on a bizarre play in which the puck bounced like a pinball off a series of skates. Detroit's Williams was trying to wrap the puck around the right side of Roloson's net when it hit the skate of Edmonton defender Marc-André Bergeron and bounced back at him.
Williams kicked it soccer-style with his left skate, then it glanced off his right skate to hit the iron at the side of the net. From there, it caromed to the edge of the crease, where Roloson caught it with his own skate as he was sliding across to cover the corner, tapping it over the line.
The Wings went up 2-1 in the second on a power-play goal by Henrik Zetterberg. It was a rare case of someone being allowed to linger in front of the Edmonton net, as Tomas Holmstrom was duelling with Bergeron in front of Roloson, obscuring his view and diverting his attention while Zetterberg swooped on a rebound.
But the Oilers potted two in the last 2 minutes 11 seconds of the middle period to regain the lead going into the third. Both goals were the product of tenacious checking. Mike Peca slapped the puck off Kirk Maltby's stick behind the Detroit net, sending the puck in front to Fernando Pisani to beat Legace. Then, while the Red Wings were still stinging from that, Pronger forced Williams to turn over the puck at the Detroit blueline and fed Winchester for a shot in the high slot that beat Legace's outstretched glove.
The fourth Oiler goal was scored into an empty net by Jarret Stall with 13 seconds left in the game.
Detroit did benefit from the return of centre Pavel Datsyuk, who missed the first game with a charley horse. He played a regular shift with Kris Draper and Brendan Shanahan. His fitness was tested early, as he was rocked by a stiff bodycheck from Edmonton left winger Raffi Torres seven minutes into the game. He got up and resumed his stride without a problem.
17
Number of giveaways by the Detroit Red Wings.
THE BIG PLAY
Mike Peca, who hustled for 29 shifts, slapped the puck off Kirk Maltby's stick behind the Detroit net and fed it in front to Fernando Pisani for Edmonton's second goal. It sparked the momentum that led to the winner.
THE BIG MISTAKE
Detroit's Jason Williams coughed up the puck to Chris Pronger at his own blueline late in the second period, setting up Brad Winchester's game-winner.