King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Stanley Cup Finals turn on a dime. Now the trophy is back in its case and the Oilers are back in the series. Plus: World Cup.

Read more: Sports, Soccer, NHL, World Cup, Ice Hockey, King Kaufman, NHL playoffs, Sports Daily, 2006 World Cup

June 15, 2006 | The exquisite torture of sudden-death overtime hockey in the playoffs. Consider the Carolina Hurricanes.

One moment you're setting up a power play, hoping to use the man advantage to buzz the Edmonton Oilers' net and get a good shot or a lucky bounce to win the Stanley Cup in your home arena. The next you're committing a hideous turnover at the blue line.

And the one after that the Oilers are mobbing one another, the Cup is going back into its case, you're looking at a 2,500-mile plane ride to Edmonton and you're one road loss away from having to play a Game 7, the ultimate sudden death, while riding a two-game losing streak.

Fernando Pisani of the Oilers pounced on an indecisive crawler of a clearing pass from Cory Stillman, skated in alone on Carolina goalie Cam Ward and beat him high on the glove side for the shorthanded game winner at 3:31 of overtime.

The goal, Pisani's second, gave Edmonton a 4-3 win in a game that started with a wild, penalty-filled, five-goal first period bookended by Oilers tallies 16 seconds in and 17.4 seconds from the end, then turned into a tight defensive struggle for the next 40 minutes, Carolina tying it midway through the second period when Eric Staal whacked away at a rebound enough times to finally move it from behind goalie Jussi Markkanen's pad for the power-play score.

The teams combined for 24 shots in the first period, 22 over the last two.

Game 6 is Saturday in Edmonton, hockey night in Canada. The Hurricanes still have the advantage, up three games to two and already owning a win in Edmonton in Game 4, but all of a sudden it's a series again.

Markkanen, an injury replacement for starter Dwayne Roloson, who was injured in Game 1, has settled down and is playing well, making a couple of big saves in the third period to stave off Hurricane threats.

If Edmonton can just get its power play together, this could really be a series. The Oilers did convert one Wednesday, on eight tries, improving their overall success rate from 4 percent to 6.

It's a rule of thumb in hockey, as much as in any sport, that if you have a chance to put an opponent away, you'd better do it, because things can change so fast. So fast. The turnaround caused by Stillman's bad pass was stunning. It's the speed at which fortunes can change, not the speed of the puck or the players, that's hockey's greatest draw and greatest challenge.

One moment's hesitation. They don't call it sudden death for nothing.

Next page: The World Cup mask. The World Cup what?