Oilers Tie Series

The Nashville Predators got a first hand experience of why Edmonton is the hardest hockey city to play in in the NHL again last night. Facing a sold out crowd and a very motivated Edmonton squad faired to be too much for the Predators. The Predators got off to a great start out-shooting the Oilers 11-7 in the 1st period but went scoreless due to Brian Boucher's excellent goaltending. It looked Grim early on for the Oilers as Daymond Langkow scored his 2nd of the playoffs with 16:32 remaining but the crowd got louder and the Oilers dominated the remainder of the 2nd out shooting the Preds 10-7. The Oilers continued to fly, out working the Preds at both ends of the ice winning every small battle and finally in the last minutes the Oilers Allison scored of a perfect set-up from Krivokrasov & Kariya. The attack was relentass and finally with just over a minute left Paul Kariya made a beautiful moved and shelfed the game winner. Short of Defense the Oilers had to rely on some of their lesser played depth players and the youngster Theoret but they stepped up and didn't miss a beat. Now the Oilers return to Nashville for another hard fought battle, Still short of Boughner to suspension and with Smith out hurt they will rely on the fill in Defense to perform well again.