A blown Lead, a heartbreaking end, and they can’t catch a break …

-The Edmonton Oilers dominated the first two periods of the Stanley Cup finals. They had a 3-1 lead on goals from Pisani, Pronger (one of the sweetest penalty shots I have EVER seen!), and Moreau going in to the third period of game one and completely blew it! In the third period, Roloson allowed an even strength, a power play and a short handed goal to give the Hurricanes a 4-3 lead. Ales Hemsky tied it up with about 8 minutes left in the game, but then disaster struck.
-Carolina's Andrew Ladd carried the puck into the Edmonton zone, cut across in the front of the net and was met there by Bergeron, who unloaded a big hit from behind that drove Ladd into Roloson and knocked the net off its moorings. The goalie remained on the ice for several minutes, then skated slowly to the locker room with an injured right knee.
-Ty Conklin, who played on 18 games during the regular season, took over for the injured Roloson. The extent of Roloson’s injury was at that time unknown.
-The back breaker for Edmonton came on a goalie miscue with 37 seconds left in the game. Conklin went behind the net to play the puck, Captain Jason Smith came up behind him to take a pass and Rod Brind’Amour came from the front to apply pressure. However, Conklin held the puck too long, Smith was too close behind Conklin to accept the pass, and Brind’Amour was in perfect position to grab the puck that Smith missed and bury it in the essentially empty net as Conklin was still behind the net. Conklin got a lot of bad press for this play, but everything would have worked out okay if Smith hadn’t been right on top of him and if the defensemen had done their job and kept Brind’Amour from getting behind the net like that.
-Carolina won 5-4 to take the series lead at 1-0.
-After the game, Coach Craig MacTavish straight up said Roloson was done for the rest of the series. I think this is a truly heartbreaking end to what had turned out to be a great trade for Roloson, he had finally found a team that believed in him and he, along with the Oilers had a great chance of winning the Stanley Cup.
-In game two of the series, Edmonton couldn’t catch a break. They put puck after puck on net and couldn’t get past Cam Ward, who is admittedly playing absolutely amazingly! The Hurricanes and Ward earned a shutout victory of 5-0 over Edmonton to take the series lead at 2-0.
-Jussi Markkanen was the man in net for Edmonton. He played an okay game, but obviously wasn’t able to steal the game for the Oilers.
-What really killed the Oilers in game two was the amount of penalties they took. Three of the five goals allowed occurred on Carolina Power Plays. Edmonton took 11 penalties, 1 in the first period, 4 in the second and 6 in the third. There is no way they are going to generate the offense they need if they are busy trying to kill penalties.
-Edmonton also needs to convert on their power play chances. They had 7 chances on the man advantage and couldn’t capitalize on one.
-An interesting twist to the series is the accusations that Rod Brind’Amour, Carolina’s Captain and the league's top face-off man this season, is cheating on face-offs. TSN’s Bob McKensie has a wonderful recap of the situation: Oilers centre Shawn Horcoff wasn't shy about saying that at all. Brind'Amour fared better than 80 percent on the draw, compared to about 30 percent for Horcoff. The Oilers argue this was made worse by the fact that Brind'Amour's a veteran who gets benefits from the linesmen. Horcoff, who had a running battle all night with the linesmen and referees, said that Brind'Amour did get tossed out of the circle on a few occasions. But it was only because they complained so much that the referees started making the calls instead of the linesmen. Horcoff had a real nasty exchange with one of the linesmen in Game 1, and some video will be put together for the NHL and its officials on what they believe to be Brind'Amour's 'cheating.' The Oilers' argument will be that he does not line up straight at the circle and comes in on an angle. They'll also point out that he benefits from putting his stick down and lifting it up again.