EDMONTON, Alberta -- No matter how good Wayne Gretzky is, he's simply no competition in a shootout with three plyers who seem to share the same brain.
'They all play the exact same style,' Gretzky said of Quebec's Marian, Anton and Peter Stastny, who combined for five goals and 11 points to overcome the Edmontons star's third hat trick of the season and lead the Nordiques to a 9-7 victory over the Oilers Sunday.
'You could change their sweaters around and not know the difference,' Gretzky said. 'Every one of them knows what the other will do because that's what they would do in the same situation.'
Gretzky was a one-man show for the Oilers, with three goals and three assists. And he should have come up with more points, especially in the third period with Quebec ahead 8-7.
'He set up Mark Messier, who had the whole net to shoot at,' Oilers' Coach Glen Sather said. 'If he scored there, it would have been 8-8 and the momentum would have come back in our favor.'
Although the game ended in a two-way shootout, Quebec coach Michel Bergeron thought Edmonton was lucky to recover from a 6-2 deficit.
The Oilers scored three goals during a five minute power play in the second period when Dale Hunter was given a major penalty for high sticking after Charlie Huddy had made it 6-3 at 11:02.
'Whey the five minutes?' asked an angry Bergeron. 'There was no blood, no injury -- they were really lucky.'
Hunter and the Oilers' Dave Lumley also received fighting majors on the play.
Lucky or not, the Oilers took full advantage to come alive. They scored three goals on 11 shots. Until that power play, they had managed only 15 shots.
'When it was 6-2 we were playing a good game,' said Bergeron. 'We were checking well and then when they made it 6-6 we had to open up again.'
Although Gretzky scored six points, he was far from happy with his team's performance.
'We have to win with 20 guys, the same way we lose with 20 guys,' he said. 'The teams come into here fired up now. It's not like a couple of years ago when teams came in here thinking it was jus another game. Now everyone wants to play us and looks froward to it.'
Sather went even further, saying teams are now playing in Edmonton confident of victory.
'Last year teams ecpetcetd to lose. This year, they think they might be able to win. We're going to have to get tougher,' he said.
Marian and Peter Stastny scored two goals each for Quebec as did Wilf Paiement. Single goals were added by Anton Sastny, Real Cloutier an Piere Aubry.
Other Oiler scorers were Tom Roulston, Messier and Lumley. Gretzky's six points extended his consectuive game point streak to 23, just five shy of the league record set by Guy Lafleur during the 1976-77 season.
