Missed the first 7 minutes or so, I thought the game started at 9. I got back just in time to see Moreau and DiPenta circling each other. Official start time was 2000ish.
Edmonton has 6 players in the box as I'm officially starting to watch the game - Laraque, Moreau, Smith, Peca, Pisani, and now Bergeron too (if I got the count right). Anaheim on the 5-3 couldn't put it away, then Roloson gobbled it up (and his mask fell off just to make it official) right at the start of the 5-4. Roloson's made a couple of good stops already. From earlier replays, it looks like Smyth was lucky to not take a boarding penalty as he ran Beauchemin from behind.
Spacek caught Selanne with a good check behind the net, Moreau almost laid Penner out at centre ice, and those are just the board-rattling type hits.
Bryzgalov went behind the net to play the puck, paused as Murray charged in, and Toby Peterson scored his first career Oilers and first career playoff goal in his second career playoff game. Cory Perrey couldn't quite sprawl out quickly enough to get it.
Todd Harvey took a stupid retaliation penalty against Todd Marchant - Harvey's supposed to be the suckerer rather than the sucker, but Marchant was always pretty good at that too.
As the puck was clearing the zone, a Duck turned and saw the ref, must have seen the dark jersey, and almost laid him out, it looked like he backed off it at the last moment but he still almost laid him out... ah, it was Selanne and he was just winding up, but it looked for all the world like he ran him deliberately. Still good for a laugh. Jason Smith forced Bryzgalov to make a save from centre ice, ouch, as Bryzgalov went wandering and almost got caught.
I missed the lineups, obviously, but at least now it looks like Horcoff, Hemsky, and Smyth are back together, and Peterson
Hemsky made a brilliant move at the blueline and got a clean, albeit rushed shot off. Murray's line came on and he and Laraque laid some Ducks out. Peca's line kept the pressure up, Peca made a pick to let Moreau get a shot away - puck came back into the Oilers end, Roloson made a good save, and MacDonald sprayed him. Roloson went after the ref, and Moreau gave the much smaller Duck a little headjerk. Cole: "I don't think the Ducks want to get into a hitting battle," finally something I can agree with. The Oilers are bigger and older, and have already essentially run one team out of the rink and proved they could go toe to toe with another.
I guess I missed the incident with Selanne chirping at Roloson and Pronger levelling him. Looks like the Sharks might be trying to get to Roloson - well, it's about time somebody tried, I didn't see much effort from the Sharks or Wings to do that. I don't think it'll work, the team with the volatile goalie has already proven to be the Ducks, and Giggy isn't playing. Yet. Bryzgalov tries to give the puck away too many more times though, and Carlyle might be tempted to give the Conn Smythe winner another chance.
Looks like CBC has a new intro graphic for the playoffs: it's very ESPN-esque. I don't like it. Stupid moving pictures.
Second period started off with a bang, as Horcoff and Smyth went in hard, Horcoff slid into Bryzgalov and that turned into a 3 on 2 the other way. Bryzgalov had had to make a good stop, and Jason Smith made a good block in the Oilers end to prevent the Ducks chance.
Oilers haven't slacked off in the hitting department in the second period either; Pronger manhandled Selanne a couple of times behind the Oilers net, and Laraque just missed somebody along the boards. Scott Niedermayer is pinching a lot; he's led a couple of rushes so far this game too. I haven't seen him play much before; I'd *heard* he was a good skater, but it's quite another thing to really see it. Quite a difference from Edmonton's #27.
Bergeron took a penalty on a weird play, high-sticking, and then Scott Niedermayer almost got beaten cleanly by Horcoff and hauled him down. Horcoff seems to have gained an extra gear this season, he was faster than I remember during the regular season, and in the playoffs he's just smoking.
Roloson made a reflex save off Sean O'Donnell, he took a very difficult save and made it look easy. Speaking of fast, Marchant's still got it, he turned Peca right around. He still has the ol' stone hands too though. Greene levelled Perry behind the net, then Laraque buried somebody else, and got a good chance in front of the net off a shot from Murray. Greene took a penalty for basically being too exuberant on Corey Perry, who did his patented "lie on my face on the ice like I've been shot" move. Eww, the refs found a tooth on the ice and brought it to the Oilers bench.
The penalty hasn't slowed them down any though, Jason Smith laid Selanne out. The Ducks are doing pretty well on this PP though, they've had two great scoring chances so far, but just can't squeeze one by Roloson, and he's covering the rebounds extremely well to boot. The puck went into the corner and Pronger was there first, he saw a Duck coming and cleared the puck, then knocked the Duck down as he tried to hit him. The Ducks are trying, but they just don't seem to have the size in the right places or something.
Some brief Oilers pressure off a great chance by Hemsky from Smyth, and now the Ducks are in the box.
Wow, the Ducks crashed Roloson and Rob Niedermayer wound up giving him a bit of a shot in the back of the head, and Jason Smith practically bulldogged his face into the ice - I think he should be grateful he had a face shield. (It doesn't look like Smith did it entirely on purpose, he was giving him a shove for the crease-crash, but I'm sure he wasn't disappointed either.) Lots of dirty play near the Oilers crease. Selanne jumped at Smith in the corner, then went flying and his skate was pretty close to Smith's head.
Getzlaf and Lupul are flying around out there - they're soaking up some hits, but it's not slowing them down. Against a mortal goalie, they surely must have scored by now - Roloson's butt must hurt from the horseshoe up there (but you have to be good to be lucky).
Laraque is being pretty effective in this game, and he's being rewarded with more ice time, as usually he'd be essentially gone by the midway point. Toby Peterson got some PP time too.
Selanne deked Staios out of his skates, then made the play to the net, and a great pass almost led to a goal - Staios took a holding penalty on Selanne, I'd have thought he got away with it since he let go right away (that's how Selanne got away) but I guess not. Horcoff had a good chance on a 2-2 rush - this Ducks power play looks more like a penalty kill. Then when the Ducks finally got it out of the zone, Perry put himself offside. Hah, Horcoff's backhander from the red line almost went in off Scott Niedermayer's leg.
The Ducks are a lot better this game at getting in Roloson's way without going into the crease, which will be helpful if he ever coughs up a rebound, but it's not doing them much good. Right after the penalty expired, Pahlsson buried Spacek, although I'm not sure why he drew a penalty - looks like it was 2 minutes for moving faster. Ah, he grabbed Spacek's stick, that's why. Edmonton couldn't get anything done on the brief PP, as the period came to an end.
Harry Neale: "If you're waiting for a power play goal from the Ducks in this series, it's like leaving your back porch light on waiting for Jimmy Hoffa." What?!
Edmonton didn't do anything with their last 40 seconds or so of the PP, then they took a penalty for too many men (isn't that the second one this game?) then Selanne took a stupid holding penalty on Chris Pronger to neutralize the PP. Getzlaf had a fabulous chance - he passed the puck out front from behind the net, circled around, and backhanded the puck at an empty net, only Roloson's skate was somehow there. Faceoff, some back and forth, then again, Michael Peca on a breakaway, and... he beat Bryzgalov, almost exactly the same way as last time.
You guys who were saying Peca's not been worth it? Sorry, you're full of it. He's been 100% full value these playoffs. He's been good on faceoffs, great defensively, and even Hemsky can't score on a breakaway, but Peca can. And at 17 minutes, he had another fabulous chance and put it off the post.
Back to the Oilers end, then another setup on the rush, Samsonov looked like he passed when he should have shot, but it was a perfect setup for Steve Staios, who buried the puck with Pisani blocking Bryzgalov from regaining the front of the net - O'Donnell had pushed him there. And the Ducks look totally demoralized. Right after that, Fedoruk went after Laraque, who totally destroyed him and then somehow got the crowd even louder - BG's grinning in the penalty box and Randy Carlyle's on the bench looking like somebody just slipped him a Tootsie Roll from my cats' litter box.
More physical play - Vishnevski ran Horcoff as he was dumping the puck in, got the worst of it, and VV went to the box. I couldn't even finish that and Scott Niedermayer pulled Spacek down (6 is not 24, Harry Neale, I can see Pisani vs Peca but not that one). BUt I have to agree with his earlier statement: the Ducks are self-destructing, taking a page out of Giguere's book. And while I was typing that, they took another penalty - but that's ok, because Pronger sent one through a two-Duck screen for the third goal in just over 2 minutes. Why didn't Carlyle call a timeout? They're just killing themselves.
5 on 3, the Oilers are basically toying with them - good passing leading to good shots, but they just couldn't bury the fifth goal. The rest of the power plays expired without a goal. Scott Niedermayer trashed Staios behind the Oilers goal, good hit. The Ducks came back, *just* missed one outside the post, and the Oilers were running around a bit, with all of Peca, Staios, and Spacek behind the net, and O'Donnell put a good shot by Roloson, 4-1. The Ducks settled themselves down there, but... they were pretty bad for a couple of minutes there. Replay shows the shot went off Peca's skate - bad bounce for Roloson.
The Oilers are playing... not so well defensively now. Some miscues are letting the Ducks get pucks they don't deserve. And Selanne made it 4-2 on a great shot, as Jason Smith took the body instead of the puck on the boards and paid the price. The Ducks are playing desparate hockey now, Todd Harvey and Sean O'Donnell seem to have something going as Harvey's helmet came off earlier and Harvey almost put O'Donnell through the boards.
Some more sustained pressure by the Ducks, for about a full minute, and a puck went off Moreau's skate into the net and then he *almost* put it in himself but Roloson got his glove *just* in time. And now MacTavish is calling the timeout - good call, settle them down. Except he had the timeout already, because they were going to video for the goal. Weird. Will they give the Oilers another 30 seconds before the faceoff? Nope, guess not. OK, bad call MacT, sorry. In his defence, it didn't look like they were going to bother with the review. And then Kunitz made it irrelevant with the 4-3 goal on a quick backhand.
Well, the Ducks are finally doing what they needed to do: charging the net with authority. Edmonton needs to get back to the forechecking that's made them successful the first two games and this one up until about 12 minutes left in the third. They finally got the puck out of their own end with about 8 minutes left. Now they're looking a bit tentative, and the Ducks brought it right back in again. Ryan Smyth willed it out past 4 Ducks, but they got it back in again on the line change. This is what the Ducks should have been doing all game, or indeed, all series. Too bad for them they're finding it out with 10 minutes left in the third game, down in the game and down 2-0 in the series. No matter what happens the rest of the game, they've got themselves a tough row to hoe.
Faceoff in the Ducks end as they iced it, and Smyth tried to stuff it in, then another faceoff. Hopefully the Oilers can continue that and bury the Ducks for good this game.
Yup, 5-3 now, Pisani stuffed it in just after the faceoff, and now the former 9th round draft pick is tied for the lead in NHL playoff goal scoring. The Ducks had won the faceoff, but the puck was just lying there, Pisani grabbed it from near the faceoff dot, and just walked in all by himself for a backhand stuff. Well, not entirely by himself - Sergei Samsonov was there too.
Right after that though, business as usual in the Oilers end; Oilers almost cleared it but Samsonov bailed as two Ducks converged and they recovered and took the fight right back to the Oilers end.
Samsonov's still on Peca's LW with Pisani on the RW - I think with a 5-3 score and less than 5 minutes left in the game, I'd rather see Moreau back there.
Faceoff with 2 minutes left, shot went in, and for some reason the referee blew the whistle but waved the goal off. The Oilers knew it was in, Pronger rolled his head back and Peca wasn't looking too pleased either. 5-4 with a minute left, when the period started 1-0. Lots of action, but I think I can do without that sort of period for the rest of the playoffs.
Curious move by Carlyle - 1:01 left, Edmonton iced the puck, and he called a timeout. So I guess it doesn't matter so much that MacTavish burned his earlier. Anaheim's doing a fab job of keeping the pressure up and the Oilers on the ice, at least Pronger was on. 10 seconds left, Penner had a great chance, but he couldn't quite get the shot away as Oilers were all lying on the ice (Pisani actually fell on top of Jason Smith's back at one point, and Marchant was almost standing on Smith's head) and Roloson was making snowmen. End of the game, Roloson looks totally dead.
What the Oilers did right: well, they scored enough goals to win it, and capitalized on the power plays, as well as holding the Ducks to another big donut on their own PP.
What they did wrong: almost everything after their fourth goal and leading up to the game winner by Pisani, and most everything after that too.
What the Ducks did right: they finally found a way to effectively get in Roloson's face and keep long, long pressure on.
What the Ducks did wrong: lousy power play again did them in; once they found themselves in a hole in the third, their initial reaction was to get a shovel and start digging deeper. And that's why they're down 3-0 in the series.