Stanley Cup Finals : Oilers Can Make Sweeping Statement Tonight

BOSTON — As they prepare to meet the Edmonton Oilers in Game 4 tonight at the Boston Garden, the Boston Bruins acknowledge the monumental task facing them in the Stanley Cup finals.

They trail in the best-of-seven series, 3-0.

A victory tonight would give the Oilers their second straight National Hockey League championship and their fourth in five years.

“They’re a good team that’s playing great,” Bruin Coach Terry O’Reilly said of the defending champions. “You can come up against a great team that’s off its game a little bit, and you can exploit them, but we’re playing a great team that’s hungry. They’re confident and playing great.

“We haven’t been up to their level. We’ve made mistakes and every time we do, they make us pay a big price for it.”

O’Reilly said the Bruins are “physically run down” and that he will try to give them a lift by using Andy Moog as his goaltender tonight.

“He’ll have a lot of motivation,” O’Reilly said of Moog, a former Oiler who has started only once in the Bruins’ last 14 games.

Moog played well in a 2-1 loss at Edmonton in Game 1 but gave way to Reggie Lemelin for Games 2 and 3.

“Reggie’s played an awful lot of hockey, and I think that Andy was outstanding in the first game,” O’Reilly said. “We weren’t that sharp as a group, but he only allowed two goals. And they were funny goals. They weren’t shots that beat him, they were deflected shots.

“So, I think that with his previous relationship with Edmonton, he will come up with a big emotional effort and it might be just what we need to turn it around.” It may take more than that.

A rested and motivated Wayne Gretzky and an emphasis on discipline and defense have put the Oilers on the verge of a sweep.

Also, their place in history must be considered.

Said defenseman Kevin Lowe: “Although it is not openly stated in the dressing room, we want to be recognized not only as one of the greatest teams of all time, but the greatest team of all time. As Slats (Coach Glen Sather) tells us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so take advantage of it.”

Nobody has suggested that they haven’t.

The Oilers have had an unusual season, full of distractions.

Moog, unhappy playing a supporting role to Grant Fuhr, asked to be traded, left to join the Canadian Olympic team when his request wasn’t met, then was traded two months ago to the Bruins.

Paul Coffey, a two-time winner of the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, held out in a contract dispute, eventually forcing the Oilers to trade him. He wound up with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And finally Gretzky, who missed only eight games in his previous eight seasons, was sidelined for a month with a knee injury and another week with an eye injury, missing 16 games in all and losing out on the scoring title and, in all probability, his ninth Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.

The absence of the free-wheeling Coffey, however, seems to have forced the Oilers to play a more disciplined, conservative style and the time away from the ice seems to have revitalized Gretzky, who is the playoff leader with 38 points, including 27 assists, in 17 games.

Against the Bruins, Gretzky has assisted on 8 of the Oilers’ 12 goals and scored another. He had the game-winner in Game 2.

“I feel like I’m mentally and physically stronger now,” he said. “I can’t wait to get on the ice.”

Gretzky, though, said the Oilers didn’t come together as a team until the week between their opening-round playoff series against the Winnipeg Jets and their second-round sweep of the Calgary Flames, who had ended the Oilers’ 6-year stranglehold on the Smythe Division championship.

“Those were some of the best practices we’ve ever had, and that in good part was out of respect and fear of the Calgary Flames,” he said.

The more focused Oilers are 15-2 in the playoffs.

And, said Steve Kasper of the Bruins: “Their defense has played better than their offense. They’re playing great in the neutral zone. You can probably count on one hand the number of 3-on-2s and 2-on-1s we’ve had in the last three games.”

It takes only one finger to count the number of victories needed by the Oilers to close out the Bruins.

Hockey Notes

Michael Thelven of the Bruins, knocked unconscious Sunday night when he was hit by Marty McSorley of the Oilers, suffered a concussion, but “all indications are that he will be in the lineup” tonight, Bruin Coach Terry O’Reilly said. Thelven will be re-examined today.

At a luncheon Monday in Boston, Bob Bourne of the Kings was presented the Masterton Trophy, which is given annually to the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey,” and said he is 99% certain that he will retire. “I can’t see our team winning a Stanley Cup for five or six years,” said Bourne, who joined the Kings in 1986 after having played 12 seasons with the New York Islanders and helping the Islanders win four NHL titles.

“The last two years have been long, and I certainly haven’t played as well as I thought I could have. I just don’t want to go through another year like last year. The first three months of the season, I bet I almost quit 10 times. It hasn’t been a lot of fun.” Bourne, 33, bought a home last year in Kelowna, Canada, about a 5-hour drive northeast of Vancouver, and said he probably will start a new career as a stockbroker.

Bourne said he had been “embarrassed” to wear the Kings’ purple and gold uniforms. “How can anyone have pride in the team he’s playing for when he’s wearing those colors?” he said. The Kings’ uniforms next season will be white, black and silver.