NHL Playoffs: Game 7 is fitting finish for Carolina and Buffalo

RALEIGH, N.C. — For nearly two weeks, the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres have fought to a standstill to see who will play for the Stanley Cup, so closing the intense series with a Game 7 seems fitting.

Even inevitable.

"If you would've told me before the series that we'd be getting ready for Game 7, I wouldn't have been surprised," Carolina forward Kevyn Adams said.

"This is what we as competitors live for, so there's no reason to be tight or nervous. It's about going out there and playing your best game. We're excited. We're looking forward to this. And it's nice to be at home, too."

In an Eastern Conference finals series tied 3-3, the Hurricanes' home-ice advantage might be the only discernible difference between evenly matched teams playing today for the right to face Edmonton in the Stanley Cup finals. Five games have been decided by a goal, the last two in overtime. And throughout the series, momentum has turned with each shift.

"It's a great opportunity," Sabres co-captain Chris Drury said. "You don't know how many of these you're going to get in your career and your life. If we enjoy it and have a positive attitude going in with nothing to lose, I think we're going to be all right."

Neither franchise has had much success in Game 7s. The Sabres are 1-4 while the Hurricanes are playing their first since moving before the 1997-98 season to North Carolina from Hartford, Conn., where the former Whalers went 0-3 in seventh games.

Carolina's biggest advantage could be playing at RBC Center, where it was 31-8-2 in the regular season and has played in front of progressively louder playoff crowds. In 117 best-of-seven series that have gone to the final game, the home team has won 73 (62 percent), according to the NHL.

Of course, that might not matter much in this series.

"If you had told us at the start of the year that we'd be in Game 7 in the conference finals playing one game to go to the Stanley Cup, I think everyone in this locker room would have taken it," Carolina defenseman Glen Wesley said. "And that's the position that we're in. We've got home ice, and we've got to make the best of it."

Oilers wait

in New York

The Western Conference champion Oilers, seeking to escape the fishbowl Edmonton has become since they beat Anaheim last Saturday, were headed to New York today.

The finals don't start until Monday, and the Oilers will be playing either at Buffalo or Carolina.

The Oilers will hold two days of practice at a suburban rink in Greenburgh — where the New York Rangers train during the season.

"There are a lot of distractions here with the players and their families," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said Wednesday after a vigorous hour-long skate in Edmonton. "We don't want to get stale in any one place."