Never-say-die Oilers even it up

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This article was published 21/06/2024 (542 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — Historic comeback? Epic collapse? Regardless of how it ultimately turns out, the 2024 Stanley Cup Final has gone from an apparent cakewalk to an instant classic.

Three-consecutive Florida Panthers victories have been followed by a hat-trick of Edmonton Oilers wins, including a dominant 5-1 effort here on a memorable Friday night inside raucous, rowdy Rogers Place.

Now a best-of-seven series filled with wild momentum swings comes down to a winner-take-all showdown on Monday night in Sunrise, Fla., between two teams on completely different emotional spectrums.

Either Paul Maurice’s crumbling crew gets its act together and captures a first championship, or Connor McDavid and company ride the wave and bring the trophy back to Canada for the first time since 1993.

“You feel it, it hurts, you lick your wounds,” Maurice said of trying to process this latest setback and prepare for their season to now be on the line.

High stakes. High drama. And plenty of heartbreak on the horizon for whichever club ultimately comes up short.

Edmonton is the third team in NHL history to erase a 3-0 Cup Final deficit and force a Game 7. The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs rallied to win it all, while the 1945 Detroit Red Wings did not.

“Try not to get ahead of ourselves. We worked so hard to claw our way back into this series, and now we’ve got probably the hardest game to win here,” said Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm.

“Try to get some rest, reset our heads and play our best game.”

Prior to puck drop, Maurice insisted his group wasn’t feeling the heat and welcomed the challenge of trying to win in enemy territory despite whiffing on two previous attempts to close it out by a combined score of 13-4.

“We’ve won series in Game 6s before, or on the road before, so that would be in our memory bank,” the former Winnipeg Jets bench boss said. “We’ve been a good road team, so there’s some confidence in how we do that. I think the pressure has levelled in my opinion. Or is levelling, based on what one team has to lose and what the other team has to gain. It becomes more even.”

Maurice may have talked a good game, but his Panthers sure didn’t play one. They were second-best in every department and seemingly suffering from a prolonged case of stage fright, now outscored 18-5 in the last three.

“We didn’t move the puck well enough,” he said after-the-fact of the issues plaguing his group.

Given the electric and extremely hostile atmosphere inside the rink — Oilers fans overpowered The Star-Spangled Banner with roaring chants of “Sergei! Sergei! Sergei” to try and rattle Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky — getting off to a strong start was crucial for the visitors.

Instead, they appeared overwhelmed.

The roof nearly came off the sold-out building when Warren Foegele converted a perfect feed from Leon Draisaitl 7:27 into the first period to put the Oilers up 1-0. Edmonton ultimately outshot Florida 11-2 through 20 minutes.

You would have expected the Panthers, with a chance to regroup during the intermission, to come out strong in the second. You would be wrong, as a terrible line change coupled with a risky pinch gifted the Oilers a two-on-one which finished with Mattias Janmark setting up trade-deadline addition Adam Henrique 46 seconds into the period.

That felt like the dagger as the crowd erupted once again.

A key play took place 10 seconds later as Aleksander Barkov batted a loose puck past Stuart Skinner to seemingly cut the deficit in half. However, Edmonton successfully challenged the play as offside.

“You’re looking for a jumpstart at that point. It would have been a spark for us for sure,” said Maurice.

Zach Hyman then put this one to bed when he buried a breakaway deke with 100 seconds left in the period, his league-leading 16th playoff goal.

How bad were the Panthers? Consider their first shot of the night from a forward came nearly 32 minutes into the contest, with the first six pucks directed at Skinner off the sticks of defencemen.

For a team loaded with plenty of offensive firepower, that is atrocious.

Barkov at least made it semi-interesting when he scored 88 seconds into the third, making a nifty, slippery deke. This time, the goal stood. That’s as close as the Panthers would get.

Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse sealed the victory with empty-net goals.

Tip your hat to Edmonton’s outstanding penalty kill, which went three-for-three on the night and is now an eye-popping 65 of 69 in these playoffs with three shorthanded goals scored. Former Jets defenceman Mark Stuart is the Oilers assistant coach who runs the unit.

Edmonton has won five Stanley Cups in franchise history, the last one coming in the 1989-90 season. The one-time “City of Champions” is making the most of this bid, with thousands filling downtown street parties in scenes of absolute bedlam.

A Zamboni was spotted cruising down 104th street outside the rink a couple hours prior to the start of the game. Honking horns on decorated cards, strangers high-fiving and hugging, dogs in Oilers garb… you name it, it was happening.

Why not? The Oilers are now 5-0 this year in elimination games, having beaten the Vancouver Canucks in Games 6 and 7 of their second-round series, and now three straight against Florida.

“I think this team just likes the big stage, they like the big moments, and they’ve gone with it,” said coach Kris Knoblauch. “Just because I think they saw the other side of it when things were rock bottom — a long time ago — right now it’s just play hockey and enjoy it.”

Now a group that went 2-9-1 through the first dozen games of the season to sit last in the NHL standings only to make a sizzling surge will need to muster one more.

“I think it’s almost fitting we’re in that spot. Looking at the series, we thought that after those three games, we deserved better than to be down 3-0, but there are no moral victories in hockey,” Hyman said prior to the game.

“We were in the situation we were in, but if there was ever a team that could crawl out of it, we believed that it could be us, just the way the season’s gone, the way that we’ve played while facing adversity, the way we’ve played while facing elimination. If there’s any group that can do it, it’s this group.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X: @mikemcintyrewpg