Oilers knock out San Jose

EDMONTON, Alberta -- The Edmonton Oilers are in the Western Conference finals for the first time in 14 years.

Michael Peca and Shawn Horcoff scored in front of a sellout crowd Wednesday night, and Dwayne Roloson made 24 saves in the biggest game of his career as the eighth-seeded Oilers held off the San Jose Sharks 2-0 in Game 6 of the quarterfinal series.

After dropping the first two games in San Jose, Edmonton stormed back with four straight victories. It is the first time the Oilers rallied from an 0-2 deficit to win a series.

They'll face the sixth-seeded Anaheim Mighty Ducks, who will host Game 1 on Friday. The winner of the best-of-seven series will take on the Eastern champion -- Buffalo or Carolina -- in the Stanley Cup finals.

The Oilers just squeaked into the playoffs but are peaking at the right time. They upset the No. 1 seed Detroit and then took out San Jose, the top team left in the wild West, to reach the NHL's final four for the first time since 1992.

"This is obviously an exciting day," forward Ryan Smyth said. "We want to go down to Anaheim and give ourselves another chance. ... It's nice to shut another team out.

"It's starts from your defense up, and we seem to play solid defensive hockey."

The Oilers acquired one of the league's best defensemen, Chris Pronger, from the St. Louis Blues prior to the start of the season.

The Sharks can blame their exit on their woeful power play. San Jose was 2-for-27 going into the game and then went 0-for-8 on Wednesday.

San Jose was an overtime goal away in Game 3 from taking a 3-0 lead in the series.