Hurricanes out to 2-0 lead in Cup finals

The Carolina Hurricanes appear to have some sort of mystical control over that round piece of rubber.

When the puck is on their side of the ice, it always seems to bounce off an arm, a leg, or Cam Ward. Down at the other end of the rink, the darn thing keeps winding up in the Edmonton goal.

If the Hurricanes can follow the bouncing puck to two more wins, they?ll have their first Stanley Cup championship.

Ward became the first rookie in 20 years to post a shutout in the finals and Carolina swept away the Edmonton Oilers 5-0 in Game 2 on Wednesday night, taking advantage of a team that was still coming to terms with the loss of playoff star Dwayne Roloson.

Carolina is up 2-0 in the series and off to Alberta, hoping to come back home next week with its name on the cup. Game 3 is Saturday night in Edmonton.

?We?ve still got to win four games, and we?re going to try to do it as quickly as possible,? said Cory Stillman, who scored a backbreaking goal seconds before the end of the second period.

Ward turned aside 25 shots for his second shutout of the playoffs and became only the 11th rookie to hold a team scoreless in the finals. Montreal?s Patrick Roy was the last to do it in 1986.

?That was a reflection of the team,? the 22-year-old Ward said. ?They played great in front of me. There were a lot of instances where we came up with key blocks that probably would have been sure goals.?

Indeed, the kid had plenty of help. Twenty-four shots didn?t even get to Ward, whose teammates kept hurling their bodies in harm?s way, willing to take a little pain to help their young goalie.

?It?s always frustrating as a team when you?re getting open looks and the other team is blocking shots,? Edmonton?s Michael Peca said. ?We have got to find a better way.?

If the Oilers were frustrated at the offensive end, imagine how Jussi Markkanen must have felt.

He became the first goalie in 45 years to make his first playoff start in the finals, handed the job after Roloson sustained a series-ending knee injury in Game 1. But Markkanen, playing for the first time since March 1, couldn?t do anything about three deflected shots that wound up in the net.

?I really thought Jussi played a fine game for us,? coach Craig MacTavish said. ?You don?t win a lot of games, even if you get outstanding goaltending, if you don?t score any goals.?

Stillman finished off the Oilers by scoring with 2.4 seconds left in the second period to make it 3-0. He flipped the puck over the net, scooted to the other side to pick it up himself and knocked it just under the crossbar on his second try.

Edmonton finds itself in a huge hole going back to Canada for the next two games. Carolina became the 30th team to sweep the first two games of the best-of-seven series at home; the Chicago Blackhawks in 1971 are the only team to blow such a lead, losing to Montreal in seven games.

Of course, the Oilers are the first No. 8 seed to make the finals under the current format.

?History doesn?t mean a whole lot to us ? what you can and cannot do in certain situations,? Peca said. ?We?re feeling pretty good about going back home.?

The Hurricanes poured it on in the final period, while the frustrated Oilers turned chippy.

Doug Weight redirected a shot into the net with his skate and the referee waved it off immediately. But, after viewing an overhead replay, it was clear that Weight managed to graze the puck with a swipe of his stick as it was on the way to the net ? making it a legal goal.

The call was overturned, Carolina celebrated and the Oilers fumed. Shortly afterward, Ethan Moreau threw a left-handed punch to the face of Hurricanes defenseman Glen Wesley as the two came together at center ice.

Georges Laraque delivered an even more flagrant hit, pummeling Carolina?s Andrew Ladd with a blow from behind in the closing minutes to get tossed.

Maybe he was just mad at Ladd. The Carolina forward was the guy involved in a collision with Roloson that left the goalie with a severely sprained knee late in Game 1. Rubbing salt in the wound, Ladd scored the first Carolina goal in Game 2 ? the puck deflecting off the skate of Marc-Andre Bergeron, the guy who knocked Ladd into Roloson.

Frantisek Kaberle made it 2-0 just past the midway point of the second with a power-play goal through Markkanen?s legs. Mark Recchi added the final goal, also on the power play, with yet another deflection.

The Hurricanes dominated the special teams, scoring three goals on the power play. Edmonton was 0-for-6 with a man advantage.

Carolina overcame a 3-0 deficit to win the opener ? matching the largest comeback in finals history ? and have outscored Edmonton 10-1 during the last 83 minutes of the series.

Suddenly, the Oilers look very much like a team that struggled just to make the playoffs, not the squad that swept through the Western Conference with three straight upsets.

?We?re not particularly interested in historical percentages,? Peca said. ?We?re going to leave the baggage in the locker room and get prepared the next two days for a home game.?