“Our guys have gone through it so many times they just savour the moment. They’re having fun and trying to stretch our season out as long as possible.”
Eminem wasn’t talking about Game 6 when he wrote Lose Yourself, but the lyrics fit perfectly.
‘Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?’
“This has always been part of the plan for our group, to be in a position like this, playing big games at home in big moments and there’s another one to go yet.
“There is no group that is more ready for the moment than this one here.”
Either way, this is going to be the last time fans in this city get to the see the Oilers play in person and they are going to unleash everything they have. It’s going to be a madhouse, the loudest and most raucous atmosphere we’ve witnessed in nearly two decades.
They will either send the Oilers into the summer with a standing ovation after one of the most compelling seasons in franchise history or they’ll send them back to Florida to finish the job.
The Oilers know what to expect and say they can’t wait for the noise.
“It’s pretty incredible to witness,” said veteran winger Corey Perry.
“Coming here for the playoffs (as a visitor) you don’t really know. If you’re not from here you don’t pay attention to it. But now you really see what’s going on around the city now. All the people coming outside to the watch parties, everybody knows. You can hear the horns honking when you’re in the dressing room. You can hear everything. It’s pretty tremendous, pretty special to be here and go through it.”
No gimmie
So will the Oilers capture it or let it slip? Because Game 6, just because it’s at home, is no gimme. Florida now has two games worth of experience on how to close out a series.
Their knees were weak and their paws were heavy the first time, an 8-1 defeat in Game 4, and they fell behind 3-0 in Game 5, but they cut it 4-3 and you have to think they’re just about fed up with all these delays.
And for the Oilers, they might have been playing with house money when they were down 3-0 and 3-1, but the pressure is building for them, too. They are two wins away from a Stanley Cup. That’s not house money, that’s everything they’ve ever wanted.
That’s pressure.
“Our backs are against the wall, there is no easy way to put it,” said Perry. “So you have to have the same mindset we had going into Game 4 and Game 5. The vision has to be the exact same. We have to come out and get that jump early. We’ve done that the last couple of games.
“We’re excited to be coming home and playing in front of our fans. We feel comfortable here. They give us that extra boost. We have to be ready to have the same mindset we have in Games 4 and 5.”
They have to make sure the atmosphere and the moment doesn’t get the best of them, which hasn’t seemed to be a problem yet.
Scoring more
In fact, they get better in these circumstances. In the first three games of a series the Oilers are 4-8, after that they are 9-2. They scored one goal in the first two games of the Final and 13 goals in the last two.
The are notoriously slow starters, but they figure things out and get better as a series gets deeper.
“They’ve been down and out before,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch said of his team.
“Going into the Dallas series, we weren’t expected to win that. Against Vancouver we had two elimination games. We should have been finished then. And when this series started we weren’t really expected to have much success.
“And going down 3-0, it looked like we were done. That puts a lot of pressure on a team. You see a lot of players clam up and not play their best because of that extra stress. Our guys have gone through it so many times they just savour the moment. They’re having fun and trying to stretch our season out as long as possible.”
That’s why Ekholm is certain the Oilers won’t be intimidated by the stage on Thursday. If they lose, it won’t be because they wilted under the weight of it.
“In the second round against Vancouver there was so much tension, so much pressure, a Canadian match up and all that,” said Ekholm.
“When we got past that it was a big boost for the whole team. We were just kind of playing free, That’s what everyone is doing right now, we’re just out there to have fun.
“You have to enjoy the journey. That’s what I keep hearing from guys who’ve won. When you get the Cup in your hands sometimes it’s like ‘was this it?’
“It’s the journey that’s actually the thing. You have to enjoy it and embrace it. That’s where you create your memories.”