Life doesn't always offer second or third chances, and when it does, those chances sometimes come in strange guises.
When Adam Oates was offered a contract by the Mighty Ducks last summer, shortly before his 40th birthday, it appeared to be a chance for him to prolong his career and enhance his statistics, not to win a ticket to the Stanley Cup finals. But his father, David, a soccer fanatic who had taught him as a boy that it's better to give passes than to receive them, immediately saw some possibilities.
"I was pretty delighted," David Oates said. "I had met [Duck General Manager] Bryan Murray way back, when Adam was in Washington, so we knew him. And Paul Kariya obviously was a great name, so it seemed like a natural fit."
Even though Oates and Kariya didn't play together much until the second half of the season, Oates has proved to be an impeccable fit with the Ducks, never more so than the night he helped boost them to the Western Conference championship and their first appearance in the Stanley Cup finals.
Oates, one of the NHL's greatest playmaking centers and Murray's first major signing last summer, scored two power-play goals Friday to propel the Ducks one more step forward on their remarkable journey. The Ducks' 2-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild completed their stunning sweep of the West finals and launched them into the Stanley Cup finals next week against the winner of the East finals series between Ottawa and New Jersey.
"It's obviously very special," Oates said. "It's been a while and it was so unexpected that this team would get here.
"We started believing in ourselves and played awesome hockey to get here."
The most awesome of all, certainly, was goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who stopped 122 of 123 shots by a feisty but tired Minnesota team that pulled out all the tricks in its repertoire. But as Giguere himself was quick to say, he could not have done this and would not have wanted to do this by himself, by having to scramble and flail and embody that wonderful hockey cliche of standing on his head to repel the puck.
There was a stalwart defense that blocked shot after shot. A corps of forwards whose character is above reproach: Mike Leclerc essentially playing on one sound leg, Kariya suppressing his sorrow and playing with passion and energy despite his father's death Dec. 28, Oates recovering from a broken hand to lend his experience and leadership and faceoff skills despite uncertainty over whether he'll be back next season.
