Today: Three Games. Tomorrow: The World

Three in a row!

The smallest things can turn into the greatest triumphs with the least amount of difficulty. We, the Edmonton Oilers, have won three road games in a row. That's 3.7% of the season's schedule, assuming we don't make the playoffs (a safe assumption if ever there was one). But from the chatter around Oiler fandom, you'd think that Ethan Moreau already had one hand on the Stanley Cup.

Sure, we only beat Dallas and Florida - who weren't exactly the '70s Canadiens themselves - only with the shootout and the nigh-magical touch of Shawn Horcoff, loping down from centre ice like Glenn Anderson in his prime, hinting at the deke, doing something completely different, and tucking the puck past the helpless goaltender with the effortless élan that was once the very definition of the Edmonton Oilers, so damned long ago.

We remain 13-17, far enough below .500 that we'll need an elevator to get back. Ales Hemsky is still done for the season, Shawn Horcoff is still battling a shoulder injury that probably should have gotten him shut down, Nikolai Khabibulin continues to sit at home eating Doritos and cashing fat paycheques while the old goaltender who plays best in contract years and has a history of injury amazingly suffered an injury in the first year of his huge contract.

Irrelevant. Three in a row! Next stop, an audience with Lord Stanley. Our French-Canadian goaltender with the bewildering hyphenated name and a history of coming up small on every stage (career playoff appearances in five professional seasons: zero) is the next coming of Dominik Hasek. If we were in the Eastern Conference, right now, on points we'd be eighth. Eighth! Imagine the sound of your bewildered columnist spitting an entire mug of coffee onto his monitor. Our goal differential is -5. Tampa Bay, the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, is -11. Those are the numbers Hope is made of.

It's a peculiarity of the Oilers that they have been unable to rely on consistent production from anybody, yet have gotten some help from almost everybody. To start the season, Lubomir Visnovsky seemed about as enthusiastic and excited as a cat being taken to the vet, but he has eleven points in his last ten games including two stupidly good points against the Panthers. Men like Ryan Potulny, Sam Gagner, and lately Robert Nilsson have stepped forward, had their moment in the spotlight, and then faded only to be replaced by our latest short-term mancrush. Dustin Penner started out the season like Joe Thornton, looked more like Scott Thornton for a couple weeks, and has lately started shovelling pucks in while dragging two opposing defenders on his back once again. And Shawn Horcoff, favourite whipping boy of those who overrate scoring numbers and underrate everything else, continues to be the only Oiler forward with an elementary understanding of NHL defense. The fact that Horcoff is only -9 on this team with his linemates and his workload is probably the most underappreciated aspect of the Oilers' short-term surge.

Whereas once there was buzz about trades and who would go where - has Sheldon Souray been linked to every team in the NHL yet, or are we still waiting on the Hurricanes and Coyotes? - they have died down to a simmer in the last week. There's no reason why. The Oilers have looked good in their three wins but they're still the Oilers. Even the Toronto Maple Leafs get hot once in a while. Soon we'll be back in the cellar that is our birthright, fingering the Hockey News draft editions and wondering whether Jason Strudwick or Dean Arsene should be our sixth defensemen while loathing ourselves for even having to ask.

But for now? Run with it like it were the Olympic torch. In a season like this, we have to take our cheer where we can get it.