NHL Playoffs Roundup : Calgary Upends Edmonton, 3-2

Joel Otto scored the winning goal at 7:32 of the third period Tuesday night at Calgary to give the Flames a 3-2 victory and a 2-1 lead over the two-time Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers in the best-of-seven series.

As they have done in all but one period of the second-round battle, the Flames dominated the Oilers. They outshot them, 38-19, and outplayed them in every department.

The Flames, after getting a split at Edmonton, had predicted they would continue to dominate.

Only another brilliant performance by Wayne Gretzky kept them from winning in a romp. Gretzky scored a goal and assisted on another to keep his team in the game.

The only time the Oilers have been in charge of the action was the third period of Game 2 when they rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie and then won in overtime.

“We outplayed them on their ice and we knew we could battle them on ours,” defenseman Jamie Macoun, who set up the winning goal, said. “They are the No. 1 team in the league, but they have to beat us to prove it.”

With a roaring crowd of 16,762 cheering them on, the Flames scored the clincher on a 3-on-2 break. Macoun was in the middle. Goaltender Grant Fuhr played the man with the puck and Macoun slipped the puck to Otto, who scored his first playoff goal.

On two other occasions in the final period, Fuhr thwarted breakaways by Joe Mullen and Hakan Loob. But he wasn’t getting much help.

In the last two periods Fuhr faced 30 shots, stopping 28 of them.

When Gretzky set up Glenn Anderson for a goal early in the final period, the Oilers, instead of starting their run, merely were making it close.

The two points put Gretzky just 10 points away from Jean Beliveau’s playoff record of 176 points.

Rookie Mike Vernon, who is 3-0-1 lifetime against the Oilers, returned after missing the previous game because of a knee injury. He faced only 19 shots.

Toronto 5, St. Louis 2--When the Maple Leafs made Wendel Clark the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft last spring, the experts thought they had made a mistake.

Nobody thinks so anymore. In this game at Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ brilliant rookie scored his fifth playoff goal with just 6:11 remaining to send the Leafs on their way to a 2-1 lead in the series.

The Blues led, 2-1, going into the final period, but Tom Fergus got the Leafs even before the period was a minute old. Clark broke the tie and the Leafs scored twice more in the next two minutes.

A sellout crowd of 16,382 gave the Toronto team a five-minute standing ovation before the game. It didn’t end until they played the Canadian national anthem. Most of the season the fans were booing the players.