Edmonton

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

The Edmonton Oilers simply weren't ready for their season to end. So they prolonged it, for at least another two days. Mike Grier scored two goals and Bill Guerin one, all in the third period, as the Oilers avoided playoff elimination by beating the Colorado Avalanche last night in Denver, 3-1. The Oilers, who also rallied to win in the final period of the series opener, reduced the Avalanche's series lead to 3-2. Game 6 is tomorrow night...

The devil dog that causes so much trouble in The Witch of Edmonton was written into the original text, but it's doubtful the evil canine that appeared in the version presented at the English court in 1621 looked or behaved like the one in the current revival at the Brick Playhouse. Wearing only an athletic supporter and a wild hairy wig, his body smeared with burnt cork, Rudy Caporaso, who plays the dog, makes a grand, delightfully ridiculous entrance to the robust accompaniment of the 1960s pop song "Li'l Red Riding Hood.

A weight was lifted off Edmonton's shoulder earlier in the day and Doug Weight inspired the Oilers to victory at night. Weight, who wasn't expected to play since spraining his left shoulder March 9, was used sparingly, but scored his 23rd goal in the third period to punctuate Edmonton's 4-0 victory over host Florida for the Oilers' season-best third straight road victory. "It's a big win for us, keeping us ahead of the other teams that are chasing us," said Tony Hrkac, who notched three assists.

Attention, Ed Snider and Bob Clarke: Edmonton general manager Glen Sather re-signed with the small-market Oilers yesterday because he said he believes he still can win with a moderate budget. Then he got personal. Referring to high-payroll teams, he took a shot at the Flyers and New York Rangers. "I'd like to prove to these guys in New York and Philadelphia that they're going about it the wrong way," he said. Sather's contract put the final touches on the sale of the Oilers this spring by a group of local investors.

Scott Mellanby's eyes examined every evil corner of the visiting dressing room at Northlands Coliseum yesterday morning. "Boy," he said. "There's a lot of bad memories in this room. " Seven hours later, while the Albertan winter wind howled outside, while the horrified, helpless Flyers were spooked again by Wayne Gretzky, the Oilers lowered that room of doom where last May the Flyers shed their Game 7 tears one floor deeper into the cold, cold earth. Last night, it became the House of the Waxed.

Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson, stalwart members of Edmonton's four championship teams of the 1980s, each tallied a goal and two assists last night to lead the Oilers back into the Stanley Cup finals with an 8-4 rout of the Chicago Blackhawks. The Oilers won their last three games to capture the Campbell Conference final, 4-2. Edmonton will be making its sixth Stanley Cup appearance since 1983, when it heads to Boston for the final round, which gets under way Tuesday night. Boston will host the best-of-seven Stanley Cup championship round by virtue of finishing the regular season with the league's best record.

A statue of Wayne Gretzky was adorned with a sign that read "U$ Lackey" yesterday in Edmonton in protest of the hockey star's recent comments supporting President Bush in the war against Iraq. Employees of Skyreach Centre quickly removed the cardboard sign from the statue at the entrance to the home arena of Gretzky's former team, the Ed-monton Oilers. Earlier this week, Gretzky praised Bush as a great leader, saying he backed him 100 percent. However, Gretzky also shied away from criticizing Canada's decision to stay out of the conflict.

Mark Lamb put Edmonton ahead to stay with a breakaway goal late in the first period, and the Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-1, last night, becoming only the seventh team in NHL history to win a playoff series after trailing three games to one. The Oilers, who blew a 3-1 lead and lost to Los Angeles in the Smythe Division semifinals last year, will get a chance to avenge that loss in the division final, beginning tomorrow night at the Northlands Coliseum....

The years have stretched to about a decade now, yet the legend - and the legends - continue to endure. Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Esa Tikkanen play for the New York Rangers. Paul Coffey plays for the Flyers. Time and distance and entries in the Transactions column have separated them. Money and opportunity and happenstance will reunite them starting tomorrow in the NHL Eastern Conference finals. Yet Edmonton remains at their core. It remains there for all of them. Coffey, Gretzky and Messier won three Cups together before Coffey was the first to discover that a condition of employment for the Oilers was that owner Peter Pocklington was the only one who got his pockets lined.

CALGARY, Alberta - After his fading team dropped a 2-0 decision to lowly Edmonton on Thursday, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette's postgame news conference was terse. Laviolette bristled about a lackluster second period that he called "horse-" and "disgraceful," saying the result had better serve as a wake-up call for a team that entered Friday as close to eighth place (eight points) as first place in the Eastern Conference. Again, the Flyers failed to take a lead - opponents have scored first in nine of the last 10 games, including the last six - and their penalty kill allowed another goal.

EDMONTON, Alberta -  Goalie Ilya Bryzgalov knows he has had an up-and-down first year with the Flyers, but he also realizes he can still save the season.  "Twenty-three games left. Plenty of time to fix it," he said before facing lowly Edmonton on Thursday night. Bryzgalov entered the game with a 21-11-6 record, a 2.82 goals-against average, and an .898 save percentage. After Thursday's morning skate, coach Peter Laviolette hinted he would ride Bryzgalov down the stretch.

EDMONTON, Alberta - Any momentum the Flyers gained from their theatrical win in Winnipeg on Tuesday did not last long. The Edmonton Oilers, the second-worst NHL team based on points, defeated the floundering Flyers, 2-0, at Rexall Place on Thursday night and prevented the visitors from recording their first winning streak in six weeks. Devan Dubnyk, playing because of a groin injury to Nikolai Khabibulin, made 35 saves to register his first shutout of the season. He entered the night with just a 2.97 goals-against average but shut down a team that began Thursday leading the NHL in goals.

MIKE COMRIE, who twice scored at least 30 goals in a season, retired from the NHL yesterday after a third hip operation in 5 years. The 31-year-old center announced his retirement 2 weeks after his latest hip procedure, saying in a statement he was no longer able to "manage the rigors of NHL play. " Comrie was limited to 127 games over the last three seasons. Comrie played 589 regular-season games with Edmonton, the Flyers, Phoenix, Ottawa, the New York Islanders and Pittsburgh.

A person familiar with the NHL's plan said the Detroit Red Wings would play the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2013 Winter Classic. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity Wednesday because the league was not expected to announce the matchup until Thursday. Earlier Wednesday, the University of Michigan board of regents authorized the athletic department to seek a contract with the NHL to let the league hold the game at Michigan Stadium. The recommendation said the game would be played Jan. 1, with an alternative date of Jan. 2. This year's game at Citizens Bank Park drew 46,967 to see the New York Rangers beat the Flyers, 3-2.   Wings stay hot at home Detroit's 4-2 victory over Edmonton extended its home winning streak to 18 games, two short of the NHL record of 20, set by the Boston Bruins during the 1929-30 season and matched by the Flyers in 1976.

JOHN COLLINS will tell you the idea grew from seeing the same picture on several walls in the NHL offices. NBC's Jon Miller, the other man credited with creating the Winter Classic, remembers watching people wrapped like fur trappers in Edmonton way back in 2003 for an outdoor NHL game between the Oilers and Canadiens and thinking, "Yankee Stadium. " But the real heroes in the amazing growth of the Winter Classic reside not in the New York offices of Collins' NHL, or cross town in the offices at 30 Rock, where Miller is a vice president of sports.

James Wisniewski made his long-awaited Columbus debut after serving an eight-game suspension, and rookie Ryan Johansen scored his first career goal and added an assist to give the Columbus Blue Jackets their first win of the season, beating the Detroit Red Wings , 4-1, on Tuesday. R.J. Umberger had a goal and an assist, rookie John Moore scored his first NHL goal and Derek MacKenzie had one into an empty net for Columbus, which entered as the only winless club at 0-7-1, the worst start in team history.

Former Flyers coach Craig Ramsay was named Thursday to coach the Atlanta Thrashers. Ramsay, who spent the last three years as an assistant with Boston, was the Flyers' coach from early in the 1999-2000 season (when he replaced Roger Neilson) until after the 2000-01 season. Stanley Cup champion Chicago sent center Colin Fraser to Edmonton for a sixth-round draft pick. The move comes one day after the Blackhawks sent playoff star Dustin Byfuglien, defenseman Brent Sopel , and forward Ben Eager to Atlanta.

The Flyers gathered for the last time on what would have been the day of Game 7, their bodies suddenly alive with bruises and cuts, their familiar faces suddenly strange without their prodigious playoff beards. The reality of it all had set in as their whiskers washed down the drain. For more than eight weeks, they had played or practiced nearly every day, the pressure and injuries and exhaustion growing with each round. "Waking up this morning was tough," Scott Hartnell said.