Edmonton Oilers Hockey Team

The Mighty Ducks changed goaltenders, their line combinations and the Edmonton Oilers' party plans. The Ducks' 6-3 victory altered the course of the Western Conference finals, denying the Oilers the sweep that a loud, vibrant sellout crowd of 16,839 at Rexall Place had implored the hometown team to deliver.

The main question for the Mighty Ducks heading into the Western Conference finals was how sharp would they be with an eight-day break after their four-game sweep of the Colorado Avalanche in the second round. It was apparent that the rest affected their execution in the first two games against the Edmonton Oilers at home. As the series shifted to Edmonton, the Ducks used their fresher legs to their advantage and now feel they have momentum after a 6-3 win in Game 4 on Thursday.

For every argument against their chances to become the third NHL team to win a best-of-seven playoff series after losing the first three games, the Mighty Ducks see a reason to believe they can join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders in overcoming that daunting deficit.

The last time Edmonton's Raffi Torres was in Southern California, he barely made it back to Canada because of flu, which forced him to sit out Games 2 and 3 of the Western Conference finals. On Saturday, it was Torres who made the Mighty Ducks feel sick by scoring the game-winning goal in the Oilers' clinching 2-1 victory at the Arrowhead Pond. "There were times when I didn't even feel a part of the team," said Torres, who often was too ill to practice earlier in the week.

The momentum proved to be fleeting. The Western Conference finals merely ended as they began. Now the Mighty Ducks are no more for this season and, in a sense, forever. The flu-ravaged Edmonton Oilers went back to their formula of timely goals and the strong play of Dwayne Roloson in the net to advance to their first Stanley Cup final in 16 years with a 2-1 victory over the Ducks in Game 5 at the Arrowhead Pond.

The Edmonton Oilers jammed their new caps onto their heads with a mixture of glee and disbelief, kids who couldn't wait to play with toys they didn't dare dream they'd get. They were the Western Conference champions, and they had the aches and pains and bruises to prove it. As well as the caps and T-shirts, handed out to them seconds after their 2-1 victory at the Arrowhead Pond completed their five-game triumph over the spirited but self-destructive Mighty Ducks on Saturday.

The Edmonton Oilers would not be at the RBC Center today competing against the Carolina Hurricanes for the Stanley Cup -- and might not exist at all -- if not for a stubborn man who would not let go of the team that had put Edmonton on the map in the 1980s and made it something more than a second-rate oil town.

Dwayne Roloson's season ended Monday at the RBC Center when he severely sprained his right knee at the bottom of a goalmouth pileup in the first game of the Stanley Cup finals. The Edmonton Oilers were left to hope that their title prospects weren't as badly damaged by the same unkind twist of fate.

Dwayne Roloson felt his right knee pop when he was knocked down and wedged against the goalpost late in the third period on Monday, but when he took stock of his limbs, his left elbow hurt the most. And so when trainer Ken Lowe asked what ailed him, Roloson first mentioned the elbow. His leg was almost an afterthought -- until he dropped to his knees and spread his pads outward, as if to stop a low shot.

As it turned out, it hardly mattered that the Edmonton Oilers chose Jussi Markkanen over Ty Conklin to replace the injured Dwayne Roloson for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals. The Oilers' lack of discipline, bad reads on defense and faulty penalty killing would have made life difficult for the best of goaltenders, which Markkanen was not.