Wild one between Quebec and Edmonton today

[The Deer]

Well today the Quebec Nordiques had the honour of being Edmonton's opponent for their home opener, which meant that the Nords team had to stand on the blueline for what seemed like forever, watching the Oilers' Stanley Cup banners unfurl and listening to the crowd go insane, choking back that lump in their collective throats that knew that they were so close to such a celebration of their own at the Colisee, but it just got away on them. It was tough to watch the banners they really thought could be theirs presented in another arena, but all the boys can do is use it as extra motivation for this season.

After the smoke cleared from a great Stanley Cup banner presentation, the home crowd was treated to a dandy home opener between two great teams, the Oilers and Quebec. It was a wild seesaw affair, which saw the lead change hands MANY times, including the evaporation of two different two goal leads (one for each side).

The Nordiques opened the scoring in the game's first minute as Joe Sakic did what he does best, one-timing one home from in close. However, the Oilers would tie things up before the end of the period on a bit of an odd goal that Ron Hextall and the Nordiques sure wished they could have back. Edmonton fired a hard one around the glass from behind center, and Quebec was originally going to send one of its D in there to touch up for the icing. However, with an Oiler or two forechecking hard, it looked like it may be a safer play to send Hextall out of his net to play the puck. In a truly odd scenario, the puck just failed to reach Hextall- it was about half a millimetre away from him and just stopped! As you all know, you can only move your goalie a certain length away from the net in this game. By then it was too late, and an Oiler swooped in, gleefully grabbed the loose puck, and threw it out front for an easy tap-in on the empty net. The groans from Quebec's bench could be heard up in the nosebleeds! 1-1 after a very hard-fought and well-played first.

The Oilers came out flying in the second, and after two sweet Slimeball dekes, opened up a 3-1 lead early. Another goal may have really put the Nords into trouble, but they gritted out an ugly "lunchpail" type goal from Owen Nolan a minute or so later to get back into things at 3-2. Soon afterward, Mats Sundin scored on a great individual effort to tie the game, and not long after that, Sundin countered again to give the Nordiques a 4-3 lead. Things had turned around quickly, and I could definitely feel Edmonton's pain as that last goal looked like it was going to hit the goalie square on, but just seemed to go through him for some reason. Late in the period, Sundin completed the hat trick, going short side, and a period that looked like it may be an ugly one for Quebec turned out pretty nice, and they headed to the room with a 5-3 lead.

The third period was quiet and it looked like Quebec may eat away the clock, until Klima threw one out front for Doug Weight, who put a great one-timer past Hextall to make it 5-4 and suddenly a brand new game. Off of the next two faceoffs, Edmonton ended up making my two D look like pylons and scoring, and suddenly Northlands Coliseum was rocking as the Oilers were in the driver's seat with a 6-5 lead. A minute and a half or so left for Quebec to try and calm down and notch the equalizer. Thankfully, Mats Sundin for the second time this season provided a heroic late game-tying goal when his team needed one, and snapped a beauty top cheese to tie things at 6-6 and quiet Northlands quite a bit.

The game looked like it may be headed for OT, until Joe Sakic came down two-on-two on what seemed like a harmless-looking rush. He barely beat the D, then tried just one of the token cheap dekes that usually don't work on the very good goalies in this league, but he didn't really have room or time to try anything else. Somehow, it caught Bill Ranford moving the wrong way, and the Nords had a new lead, 7-6, that they would not relinquish. Quebec then won the next draw and kind of cheaply ragged down the clock to hang on for a win they felt very lucky to come away with.

GREAT game by Slimeball, he scared the hell out of me with both the 3-1 second period lead and the comeback from 5-3 to take a 6-5 lead in the third. It may sound cliche but this one realllly coulda gone either way! I for one was just happy that it turned out a little better than my meeting with the guy last season, where he dealt me my most lopsided loss thus far in league play, a 9-3 trouncing as the Detroit Red Wings.

Good luck the rest of the way Edmonton, the Oilers and their fans are in for a great season for sure, and I expect to see them challenge for the Smythe Division (NOT Pacific Division) title and one of the top seeds in the West (you'd think I'd be consistent and use "Campbell).

s**t that was way too long a recap for a regular season game, I need to get a life.