Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Pain or pleasure awaits the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7






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Dan Barnes, Edmonton Journal
 An ode to Game 7 penned only by the victor would be a vapid transit of hockey’s highest plane.
For the vanquished, Game 7 is a brick wall, a broken heart, the last stop. Their pain is integral to the mythology. It’s also the strangest part of the reality.
Because the Game 7s played on your cul-de-sac, back yard rink, in the alley, the tennis court, the boulevard, you never lost any of them. You were Bobby Orr, horizontal. You were Wayne Gretzky or Stevie Y letting fly down the wing. Your arms were always raised, teammates always mobbed you, the crowd chanted your name.
“You always win. It’s funny the way that happens when it’s going on in your head,” then-Oiler Chris Pronger said in 2006, on the eve of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Precious few of these Edmonton Oilers have turned their boyhood Game 7 dream into either version of the adult reality. Matt Benning, Drake Caggiula, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and others are all new to it, notwithstanding the fact they just won an elimination game.
Milan Lucic has Game 7 experiences good and bad. Patrick Maroon has played and Todd McLellan coached in the pressure-cooker of a Game 7. They’re not looking backward or telling old tales to the fresh faces in the Oilers room.
Griffin Reinhart #8 of the Edmonton Oilers hits Chris Wagner #21 of the Anaheim Ducks in Game Six of the Western Conference Second Round during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Rogers Place on May 7, 2017 in Edmonton. Codie McLachlan / Getty Images
“If you think any of us are standing up on a soap box and telling the inexperienced people, ‘I’ve been here before, listen to me,’ it doesn’t happen that way,” said McLellan. “We’ll talk about our group and what opportunity we have moving forward as a group. We get to make our own history. We don’t have to rely on another team’s.”
Before the puck drops on Wednesday, Edmonton’s most recent and relevant Game 7 was played 11 years ago. Going in, the 2006 Oilers had the dream. Pronger won every Game 7 he played on St. Charles St. in Dryden, Ont. Shawn Horcoff did the same in Castlegar, B.C. And Fernando Pisani in his Castledowns crescent.
Until June 19, 2006. In the Stanley Cup Final.
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“To lose in Game 7 in the first round, it’s disheartening. To lose in Game 7 in the Final, that’s just heartbreaking,” Pisani said recently. “There’s a difference. I just remember that feeling when that final buzzer went in Carolina, that’s the most gut-wrenching feeling you’ll ever have as a player.
“Looking back, you don’t get a lot of opportunities as a player to make it that far. To come that far and come up empty-handed, it’s probably the toughest thing to get over. And you know what, I don’t think you ever get over it, just because it’s always, ‘we were that close.’”
Close enough to watch the Hurricanes raise the Cup. Close enough to hurt.
The 2017 Oilers aren’t that close. But there is a Game 7 to play on Wednesday in Anaheim. Passage to the Western Conference Final awaits the victor, an off-season of regret or perhaps reflection for the vanquished.
Anaheim Ducks’ Corey Perry (10) tries to screen the net as Edmonton Oilers’ goalie Cam Talbot (33) makes the save during the third period in game six of a second-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Edmonton on May 7, 2017. JASON FRANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS
These Oilers are treading in largely uncharted water. They will have to be careful, but not too careful. That’s the advice from a few old Game 7 pros with Edmonton ties.
“You have to play exactly the same as regular season. In the playoffs, you can’t get nervous. I loved to play those games because every one of them counts,” said Esa Tikkanen.
Play the simple game. Stay on the right side of the puck. Don’t make the one mistake that turns the game and haunts your dreams.
“You get into a Game 7, a lot of times it comes down to one play, a bounce that goes your way,” said Horcoff. “Those games are usually pretty simply played because no one wants to make that mistake.”
In 2014, Jarret Stoll and the Los Angeles Kings were down 2-0 early in Game 7 in Chicago, the crowd was going nuts and it wasn’t looking good.
To lose in Game 7 in the first round, it’s disheartening. To lose in Game 7 in the Final, that’s just heartbreaking.
Fernando Pisani
“But you get a timely save, claw your way back in and find a way to win the game,” Stoll said.
“You just play the game. You know what’s on the line and you’ve just got to execute. The room for error is very slim, for taking a bad penalty or for a goalie to give up a bad goal. Those are things in a Game 7 that can’t happen. Those are the little things that add to the pressure. But at the end of the day, you play the game and hope your teammates are ready to go.”
The Kings won that Game 7 in overtime and went on to take the Cup from New York. And it helped heal the pain from 2006.
“We were playing for the City of Edmonton and basically for all of Canada at that point, and you think of the fans, the pride the city has in the Oilers,” Stoll said. “That would have been special to win for the fans and the city.”
Today’s Oilers aren’t even close to doing anything that special yet. There is a Game 7 to be played on Wednesday. Win it, and be halfway to the dream. Lose it, and be wiser for the experience on hockey’s highest plane.
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