Edmonton Oilers' Tom Gilbert, Andrew Cogliano and Fernando Pisani (facing front) celebrate Pisani's goal against the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 12, 2008. Pisani faced a serious health crisis this past summer after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. (Jimmy Jeong/Associated Press)

Fernando Pisani has been the embodiment of the Edmonton Oilers' season, with both player and team overcoming injury to reach peak form near the end of the regular season.

Pisani scored a goal and an assist in a 4-2 win over Phoenix on March 15 and tallied the shootout winner the next night as Edmonton beat the NHL's hottest team, San Jose.

The Edmonton native now has 11 goals - three of them game winners - and seven assists in 48 games since returning to the lineup after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.

The Oilers, written off after enduring a spate of injuries to key players, have crept back into NHL playoff contention with 10 wins in their 12 last games. While the club is still facing long odds, their chances of making the playoffs are more plausible than a certain other Canadian club to whom at least twice as much ink and bandwidth space have been devoted.

Pisani, 31, is just happy to be contributing. Still fresh in his mind are the depths of a summer health ordeal that led to rapid weight loss and fatigue, and facing the possibility of a forced end to his NHL career.

"I was very concerned … it meant that hockey might not be there anymore," he told CBCSports.ca. "It started to kind of hit me hard that I might not playing maybe not [only] this year, but [for] years to come afterward."

2006 a lucky year

Pisani is one of nine players on the roster who experienced Edmonton's remarkable journey from eighth place to the Stanley Cup finals two years ago. Pisani was a particular revelation in that spring of 2006, scoring far above his regular-season norm with 14 goals in 24 games.

Almost exactly one year removed from the final, the first acute signs of a serious illness appeared as Pisani was preparing for his offseason workouts.

"I couldn't hold anything down," said Pisani. "Everything I ate or drank went right through me."

Pisani was prescribed a drug typically effective in fighting digestive and inflammatory bowel disorders, but it didn't work, and by August he was hospitalized for the first of two extended stays.

"I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for air [and] I couldn't do anything without having to be close to a bathroom," he said.

In the end, Pisani lost nearly 40 pounds and six pints of blood before doctors were able to combat the ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammation of the large intestine, with the prescription drug Remicade.

Fernando Pisani, centre, squeezes between Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, left, and Stephane Yelle during a Northwest Division matchup earlier this season. (John Ulan/Canadian Press)

The father of two toddlers said the support of his wife and family was vital in his return to health.

"They kept me so positive through the whole thing," he said. "There was times I didn't want to see anybody but they were just always at the bedside trying to keep my mind off things and worrying about things I couldn't control."

While other members of his extended family had no history with the disease, the player's brother was previously diagnosed with Crohn's disease, another inflammatory bowel disease.

There were a few dietary changes for Pisani, but even for an Italian, avoiding spicy foods was a small price to pay to get back to a sense of normalcy.

"For the most part it's been pretty good; I haven't had anything where a certain food has bugged me," said Pisani.

Short on stamina

After the first rush of playing again following his Dec. 2 debut, the lack of a typical offseason regimen began to show soon enough. Building up stamina was tough, and Pisani had just one assist in 13 games in January.

The Oilers, meanwhile were in the process of facing a second straight lost season due to mounting injuries, with Shawn Horcoff, Sheldon Souray, Raffi Torres and Ethan Moreau all gone for the year.

Pisani said the players who were around last year were willing to do anything to avoid last year's plunge in the face of adversity, during which the club lost all but two of their last 19 games.

Also helping to prevent a similar fate this time around has been the steady progress of players in their first full season such as Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Tom Gilbert and Robert Nilsson.

"We all realized with all the injuries we had we could either spiral down to where we were last year or we could collectively as a team just play better and play good defensive and ... good structured hockey," said Pisani.

Seen as a role model for others

Pisani's goal against the Sharks helped the Oilers improve to an NHL-best 15-3 in the shootout this season. The right winger is 2-for-3 in the shootouts this season and 5-of-12 in his career.

"It's something that you don't think about too much," he said of his approach. "I just go out there and have a couple of things I'm going to do in my head and try and execute them, and I've been pretty fortunate to get them to go in.

"If I'm shooting third, just try and watch and see what tendencies the goalies have, and try and make up my mind from watching the previous shooters go."

Pisani was an obvious choice this week as Edmonton's nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, given to the player who exhibits perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication.

He didn't expect to be any kind of role model or spokesman just a few short months ago, but he's glad his struggles have raised awareness of inflammatory bowel disorders.

"It's not one of those illnesses that a lot of people enjoy talking about and it's obviously a private matter, but at the same time, so many people have come up to me and said I have a brother, sister or uncle or aunt that has been affected by this, and hasn't really been able to come out and say anything because they just felt embarrassed about it until my situation came up."