There are all kinds of formulas for winning the Stanley Cup, but using all three goaltenders on your roster in the first two games probably isn't one of them.

Faced with a choice that was goaltending equivalent of Tastes Great or Less Filling after losing starter Dwayne Roloson for the series late in Game 1 -- either Ty Conklin or Jussi Markkanen, both with egregious .880 save percentages during the regular season -- Edmonton Oilers coach Craig MacTavish decided on Less Filling, the sometimes feckless Finn. After being lit up for five in Game 2 of the final by the determined Carolina Hurricanes, Markkanen might be known as More Filling. At least that's what the Hurricanes were doing to the net.

And the startling thing on a night when the Oilers didn't merely lose but started running around like a fourth graders at recess is that Markkanen fit right in -- no better or worse than the team in front of him.

Indeed, MacTavish could have used both Markkanen and Conklin in net at the same time. It hardly would have mattered.

"I thought [Markkanen] played well," said Oilers winger Ryan Smyth. "He kept us in the game early. For a guy who hasn't played in a while" -- Markkanen last played March 1 but hadn't won since Jan. 25 -- "he did well. No need to put the blame on him."

Fair enough. Sure, his save percentage for his first playoff start wound up as .808 -- five goals on 26 shots in the 5-0 rout -- but he was as much the victim as he was victimized by a team that simply melted. After some promising moments in the first period, when the determined Hurricanes were forced to block 11 shots, the Oilers simply never were in the game. They played river hockey for the first eight minutes, allowing three two-on-ones, the puck finding the net when Andrew Ladd banked one in off Edmonton defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron, who is killing his goalies. (Remember it was Bergeron who shoved Ladd into Roloson with fewer than six minutes remaining in the third period of Game 1 and knocking the goalie out with a knee in jury, which ultimately put the Oilers in this predicament. If Carolina wins, Bergeron might get an extra playoff share.)

They could not stay out of the penalty box and when they were on the penalty kill, they could not maintain the integrity of their four-man box, allowing Carolina three power play goals in 10 opportunities. As MacTavish noted, there were some truly quirky bounces on the Carolina goals, but Markkanen left some greasy rebounds, failing to corral Nic Wallin's shot that eventually led to Cory Stillman flipping in the puck with a few seconds left in the second period, a goal that seemed to crush the Oilers' spirit and wreck their discipline.

"I thought we were being too impatient," Oilers center Michael Peca said. "We got caught in the river game they like to play, and that opens us up to being vulnerable. They took advantage of that. The last thing you need to do is to continue to give a team the opportunity to score on a guy who hasn't played in four months."

Now there is nowhere for MacTavish to go, other than to Edmonton for Game 3 Saturday. He is committed to Markkanen for the rest of the series, hoping that the goalie's confidence level -- one reason he chose Markkanen over Conklin, who made the puck-handling gaffe that resulted in Carolina's last-minute winner in Game 1 -- improves. If Markkanen's indifferent play were a question of nerves, MacTavish suggested, it would have been evidenced in the way he handled the puck. He didn't handle it badly. And he certainly swept it out of his net with aplomb.

If Edmonton is going to rebound in this series, it has to make the goaltender irrelevant. The Oilers need to bubblewrap Markkanen, get in even more shooting lanes to block shots, play the way they did when their pre-Roloson netminding was left to the shaky troika of Markkanen, Conklin and Mike Morrison (traded at the deadline to Ottawa). The Oilers have to avoid penalties, bang the Carolina defense on the forecheck, tighten up in the neutral zone.

MacTavish has a terrific selling job in the next 72 hours, getting his team to ignore that it has been outscored 10-1 in the series since late in the second period of Game 1 and that its injured bulwark goalie, now cleanly shorn, his playoff beard as much as a memory as his generally solid postseason play, has yielded to a backup goalie who was one reason eighth-seeded Oilers scuffled just to get into the playoffs.

If you're an Oilers fan, it's enough to make you cry into your (lite) beer.