It was only one night, but what a night it was for Edmonton.
Saturday night comes under the heading of "when you least expect it." I'm going to write an entire blog off one game which might be overdoing it, but that tells you the kind of season it has been for Edmonton.
Actually, it's been a terrible year for Edmonton in the standings, on the ice and in the medical room.
But one shining moment in the 2010-11 season was the night when the 30th place team in the league knocked off the first place team.
I know the Canucks might have taken the Oilers lightly after clinching top spot in the league—any team they would have faced would have been taken lightly.
I get that.
Long after this game has been forgotten by Vancouver, Edmonton will remember it if only to remember what it's like to be a "have" and not a "have not."
One day Edmonton wants to be Vancouver and that's why for one night when you talked about the two Swedes it wasn't Daniel and Henrik, it was Omark and Paajarvi.
And if the discussion turned to goaltending, it wasn't about Roberto Luongo, it was Devan Dubnyk’s fabulous performance.
Where the Oilers want to be is where the Canucks already are.
Vancouver has built a good team year-after-year and now they are great. All that's left to do is win the Stanley Cup and they have a chance to do it now.
The Oilers don't.
Twenty years ago it was the Canucks eyeing the Oilers as the team they wanted to be.
Now it's a role reversal—one that Edmonton hopes doesn't take another two decades to reverse back.
