How the Cup was won (and lost)

By Jesse Campigotto

Improbable as it may have sounded before the season, the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup Monday with a 3-1 Game 7 win over the Edmonton Oilers.

So, how did this happen?

Monday's win was merely the latest in a season full of unlikely victories for the Hurricanes, who won 52 games — 24 more than in the previous season, when they missed the playoffs.

Carolina's almost overnight improvement was fuelled largely by a seamless transition to the offence-friendly landscape created by the NHL after the lockout. The lowest-scoring team in the league before the lost season, the Hurricanes morphed into the third-most potent offensive squad in 2005-06.

The club’s newfound scoring punch was spurred by the shrewd off-season acquisitions of general manager Jim Rutherford, who brought in slick veterans Cory Stillman (76 points this season), Ray Whitney (55 points) and Matt Cullen (career-high 25 goals and 49 points), none of whom attracted much interest from rival teams.

"To go out and sign guys like Cullen and Stillman, they were really welcome additions to our team for offensive purposes," Carolina coach Peter Laviolette said during a conference call amid the Eastern playoffs.

Breakthrough years

The Hurricanes also got a surprising 100-point season from second-year man Eric Staal, a breakthrough 76 points from 24-year-old Justin Williams and 31 goals from rejuvenated captain Rod Brind'Amour.

“I [was] playing with much better players, I had a lot more opportunity with more power-play time and that's where you get the bulk of your points,” explained Brind’Amour.

The unexpected production from Brind’Amour and Co. transformed a team that was lightly regarded before the season into the East’s second seed in the playoffs, where the Hurricanes continued to improve.

Carolina's middling power play, which ranked 17th in the regular season, finished the playoffs behind only Ottawa. And rookie goalie Cam Ward, who stepped in for Martin Gerber early in the first round, posted a sparkling .926 save percentage and 2.14 goals-against average to earn the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

“In his first playoffs, to handle it and respond the way he did and never crack under the pressure, says a lot about Cam,” Laviolette said after Game 7. “You need goaltending in order to win hockey games. We got it tonight. We have gotten it through the playoffs.

Led by steady veteran blue-liners like Glen Wesley and Bret Hedican, Carolina also shored up its defence.

No playoff team allowed more regular-season goals than the Hurricanes, but in the playoffs they allowed fewer goals per game than the Oilers – a team with a reputation for stingy play.

Carolina also stepped up its penalty killing, which was ranked 19th in the regular season, to the point that it succeeded 85.4 per cent of the time – trailing only the Oilers.

And the Hurricanes also lived up to the old saw that says, In the playoffs your best players have to be your best players. Staal and Stillman led all post-season scorers with 28 and 26 points, respectively, and Brind'Amour finished second with 12 goals.

How did the Oilers slip up?

The eighth-seeded Oilers did remarkably well just to make it to the Cup final and, if not for a few bad breaks, could have brought Lord Stanley back to Canada.

Propelled by air-tight penalty killing, a surprisingly potent offence and the stellar play of Dwayne Roloson (a Minnesota Wild cast-off who played perhaps the best hockey of his career after coming to Edmonton in a deadline deal), the Oilers embarked on one of the more surprising runs in recent playoff memory.

But the clock struck midnight almost as soon as Edmonton arrived in Carolina for Game 1 of the Cup final. In that game, the Oilers lost Roloson to a season-ending knee injury and blew a 3-0 lead en route to a 5-4 loss.

Backup Jussi Markkanen performed admirably in relief, but it’s tempting to wonder what Edmonton could have done with its No. 1 goalie in the lineup.

“Having a goalie back there that is playing as well as Dwayne is, it’s a big piece,” stalwart defenceman Chris Pronger said after Edmonton clinched a spot in the Cup final.

Not-so-special teams

The Oilers' penalty killing, the glass slipper on which they waltzed in to the final, also slid off against the Hurricanes. After holding San Jose and Anaheim to a combined five goals on 74 chances (6.7-per-cent success rate) in Rounds 2 and 3, Edmonton gave up 9 goals on 44 Carolina power plays in the final (20.5 per cent).

It may be that the Oilers' undisciplined play finally caught up with them against the Hurricanes. Edmonton handed its opponents a playoff-high 158 power-play chances – something which San Jose and Anaheim couldn't exploit but which Carolina and its lethal power play could.

“The number of penalties is going to favour the team that's got a special team advantage, and that's Carolina,” Oilers coach Craig MacTavish admitted after the Hurricanes went 3-for-9 with the man advantage in Game 5.

Edmonton's power play, meanwhile, was terrible in the Cup final. Apart from a 3-for-9 outburst in Game 6, the Oilers went 2-for-36 against a Hurricanes penalty-killing unit that was playing at its best but still far from top-notch.

And some of the Oilers' best players were, well, not at their best against Carolina. Roloson, of course, was unavailable due to his knee injury, and Shawn Horcoff, who racked up 17 points in the Western playoffs, tallied just two goals and no assists in the seven finals games.

The Oilers also had the misfortune of running into one of the playoffs’ most fortunate teams. Carolina benefited from injuries to Montreal’s Saku Koivu in the first round, four key Sabres defenceman in the conference final, and Roloson in the Cup final.

Of course, as both Edmonton and Carolina now know, it takes a great deal of skill and luck to embark on a run to the Stanley Cup. Perhaps in the end, the Hurricanes' lasted just long enough while the Oilers' ran out a moment too soon.