Monday May 4 9pm
A win will send one team to the second round of the playoffs when the Edmonton Oilers face off against the Colorado Avalanche tonight. The Oilers forced the decisive seventh game in the series behind spectacular goaltending from Curtis Joseph and goals from defensemen Drake Berehowsky and Boris Mironov in a 2-0 blanking of the Avalanche on Saturday.
With a win, the Oilers can become the 14th team in NHL history to rally from a 3-1 deficit to win a playoff series. Edmonton is 5-2 in seventh games, including a upset of heavily favored Dallas in last season's opening round of the playoffs.
After a three-game slump in which he allowed 13 goals, Joseph has rebounded with two solid starts, yielding just one marker. Overall, Joseph enters tonight's contest with a 2.92 goals-against average and an .899 save percentage. The Avalanche have gone 2-1 in seventh games, including when they were known as the Quebec Nordiques. However, this is their first Game Seven in 11 years.
For Colorado to win, they will need to jump-start their power play -- quickly. The Avalanche are 0-for-12 with the man advantage over the last three games after going 5-for-18 in the first three matches.
Oiler killer Peter Forsberg scored six goals and added seven assists in the first four games of the series, but has been kept off the scoresheet since then.
Patrick Roy, who has failed twice to record the 100th playoff win of his NHL career, has the better goaltending statistics in the series thus far. Roy begins play tonight allowing 2.29 goals per game and has a .921 save percentage.
Roy is in danger of losing consecutive playoff series for the first time in his 14-year career.
If Edmonton completes the upset, it would meet Dallas in the second round for a rematch of last season's Western Conference semifinals. Colorado would get the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings in the second round with a win.
