While it is still a long time till the Edmonton Oilers face-off against the Vancouver Canucks in a crucial game 5 my nerves are already feeling the stress of watching this game tonight. While losing tonight doesn’t eliminate the Edmonton Oilers it sure makes their journey a lot more difficult. Whereas a win tonight would expose the throat of the Canucks readying them for a death blow.
This game tonight is just as important if not more important to win than the last game for the Oilers. Having a chance to put the Canucks on the brink of elimination would shift all the pressure onto the Canucks. A team with a young core who have never faced this type of adversity. Going into Edmonton with a chance to be eliminated is really something that the Canucks players do not want to do. Rogers Place is hostile at the best of times, but having the chance to send a team home the fans will be relentless.
For the Oilers, you just don’t ever want to have a chance to get eliminated. As much as I believe that the Oilers are the better team, any team can have a bad game, and this postseason the Oilers have had too many bad games. I think they will get up for this game tonight though, so I expect a hard fought game. If the Oilers can score first and plant the seed of doubt in the fans in Vancouver.
From this point on for the Oilers every game will have monumental importance. The Oilers have the hope and the skill to make a deep cup run, the problem is they need to stay sharp mentally. When this team loses a game it is usually self inflicted. If this team can play mistake free hockey tonight then I fully expect this series to end in 6 games. I just don’t know if my nerves can handle the Oilers coming back to Edmonton being down 3-2.