Oilers Win This One on Fumes

The Oilers were gasping for air, too tired to draw strength from the roaring crowd that had filled Rexall Place with noise and swirling

silver pompons and a sense of

inevitability for most of the night.

The Mighty Ducks were pushing back, belatedly. The Oilers, still reeling from a virus that has affected a half-dozen players, were toppling.

“We ran out of gas at the end,” defenseman Steve Staios said.

Before the tank hit empty, they rode the last few precious drops of energy to a 5-4 victory Tuesday and a daunting 3-0 lead in the Western Conference final, a disadvantage only two teams in NHL history have overcome in a best-of-seven series.

The Ducks, who did three things wrong for every two things they did right in the third period, were left to mourn their mistakes and wring encouragement from having come close to winning, from having fought back after they trailed, 4-0, to make it a bizarre and memorable finish.

Coming close doesn’t cut it. Coming close will get them a place on the wrong side of the handshake line Thursday and tee times Friday.

“You’ve got to credit them. They play hard and they’re getting good bounces due to hard work,” said Ducks winger Dustin Penner, who barely missed connecting with a bouncing puck in front of the net as the clock ticked off the final seconds.

“I think we banked a lot of good bounces that are going to come our way.”

Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Good bounces aren’t like a certificate of deposit that has come due. Good luck and good bounces come from smart positioning, relentless drive and a willingness to emphatically finish off each check. They come from good goaltending, discipline and a well of resolve that is replenished every game by different hands and in different ways.

The Oilers have shown all of that in this series, game after game after game.

Their first goal was scored by Toby Petersen, inserted into the lineup for only the second time and only because Raffi Torres was weakened by a virus, on a nifty wraparound made possible when Ducks goalie Ilya Bryzgalov was caught out of the net. Michael Peca, continuing his postseason resurgence, scored the second on a breakaway.

The Oilers got two power-play goals from defensemen, an element the Ducks have missed, and capitalized on the Ducks’ miscues after a faceoff to score what stood up as the decisive goal. “That was pretty close to a backbreaker,” Ducks winger Joffrey Lupul said.

And although the Ducks continued to press and clawed back within a goal with 1:45 left in the third period, the Oilers’ hearts overpowered their tired legs.

“A little too late,” Lupul said of the Ducks’ flurry. “You can’t give any team a four-goal lead, especially a team with a goalie like their goalie has been playing.

“We didn’t quit, and that’s a positive, but it seemed like it was a little too easy for them. We played hard all night, but we made mistakes.”

Playing hard means little without also playing smart.

Although Oilers goalie Dwayne Roloson let in four goals in the third period -- two more than he gave up in the first two games -- he was unbeatable early and gave his team enough of a cushion to survive a sloppy third period. That’s why the team that couldn’t win more than five games in a row during the season -- and last did that in December -- has won seven in a row and is on the verge of qualifying for the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1990.

It’s why the team that made the playoffs in the last few games of the season has upset the Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks and distanced itself from the Ducks.

“We found a way to win,” Staios said. “You can say what you want. It wasn’t the prettiest, but Rollie was great for us early and then we were fortunate that a lot of pucks we shot were finding their way in.

“They obviously were a desperate team, but we weathered the storm and got the win. We feel fortunate, and we’re going to take a rest [today] and regroup for Game 4.”

Said Oilers center Jarret Stoll: “It wasn’t our best game. We didn’t have the jump we wanted to and they took advantage of it in the third. We just found a way to win the game, like we’ve been doing all during the playoffs.”

At one end of Rexall Place hangs a row of huge, colorful banners. The first shows Wayne Gretzky lifting the Stanley Cup in 1984. The second shows him carrying it in 1985. In the third, Kevin Lowe, then an Oilers defenseman and now the team’s general manager, hoisted the trophy in 1987. The 1988 banner depicts a smiling Mark Messier with the Cup. The 1990 banner features Bill Ranford, the most valuable player in the Oilers’ fifth and most recent championship season.

They were blue bloods. The 2006 Oilers are a blue-collar bunch, and proud of it. “We sacrifice the body and block shots,” Petersen said. “Little things like that are getting it done.”

Those little things have added up to a big deficit for the Ducks.