SOUTHEAST-BOUND AND DOWN 3-1

They got a long way to go, and a short time to get there . . .

It's all about knowing your hockey clichés at this time of year, and tomorrow it will be that the Carolina Hurricanes are poised to bring the Stanley Cup back to the Triangle because its best players were better than the Oilers' best players in tonight's 2-1 victory.

It was Chris Pronger, after all, who got a case of Belakitis and coughed up the puck to Eric Staal late in the second, leading to former acid-washed jeans model Mark Recchi scoring the game-winner. Of course, in Pronger's defence, that was bound to happen after the strain he's been under, shouldering such a heavy load throughout these playoffs.

There's more to it than that. Edmonton has a boatload of power-play woes and other than in Game 1, hasn't had more than one line firing on any given night. (Even in Game 3, the Ryan Smyth-Shawn Horcoff-Pinto Hemsky line accounted for both Oilers goals.)

That's what this space suggested would swing the series to Carolina: "It just keeps coming back to Carolina's depth up front against the Oilers' back end, which relies heavily on just four d-men."

That, along with The Injury, The Giveaway, Cam Ward's goaltending and Edmonton's surpassing suckiness on the power play, is the story of this series. So is the fact that Carolina's back end has proven stronger than many skeptics suggested.

Other factors have fallen by the wayside: Roloson's been hurt, Carolina's power play hasn't been lights-out (but even mediocre is enough when your opponent is 1-for-25) and Staal was invisible in the first three games. At the end of the day, Carolina's getting more production up and down the lineup, and that's why the Cup will soon be theirs.

One other thing about tonight's game: The teams combined for only 43 shots, and the puck seemed to bounce all over the place. Remember, this is Edmonton, long reputed to have the best ice in the league. I defy any crew to keep the ice hard and crisp when they're playing hockey on June 13. Once again, proof that nothing really changed after the lockout season, since the NHL still insists on having an ungodly long season that doesn't need to drag into the middle of June.

Yes, there was a two-week break for the Olympics, but with a shorter training camp and shorter regular season, hockey wouldn't be competing for attention with the World Cup, even in supposedly hockey-mad Canada.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Look for positives, look for positives about the Blue Jays, now officially into a June swoon after a 6-4 loss to the Orioles. Well, Alex Rios homered twice, so we can strike the slump talk. And yes, it could be expected that Casey Janssen might have trouble when he was facing the Orioles for the second time in less than a week. Fun fact: the Jays have hit nine homers in this three-game losing skid, but scored just 12 runs. The only run that didn't score via the long ball came on a RBI double Sunday by Edgardo Alfonzo, who was promptly released. Russ Adams is back from Triple-A but apparently his bat didn't clear Customs: 0-for-4 in his first start at second base.
• Just so you know, Barry Bonds has never failed a MLB drug test, either: The NHL went into self-congratulatory spasms yesterday after revealing it had no positive drug tests this season. Subtext to the story: Don't mess with the hockey mafia, especially if your name is Dick Pound. Let hockey solve its own problems. Just like it did with Todd Bertuzzi. Oops. Bad example.
• It appears Big Ben Roethlisberger will be all right after breaking his nose and jaw in a motorcycle crash on Monday.
• Do yourself a favour and check out what my man Pat Pearce has to say.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.