As the nerves of Edmonton turned into excitement for their first Stanley Cup Final home game since 2006, the Oilers fell short after a disastrous second period.
With Rogers Place abuzz, the Oilers controlled play for large parts of the first period. Even while on the penalty kill, the Oilers contested every inch of ice.
“The job’s not finished. We’re not really thinking about that,” Panthers forward Sam Bennett said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The Oilers received two power plays, which were incredibly strong.
Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid had opportunities, but were robbed by Sergei Bobrovsky.
With a minute and a half left, a scrum lead to Brett Kulak punching Matthew Tkachuk in the face, and both players received minor penalties.
Just 30 seconds later, a bad turnover from Evan Bouchard leads to a clean play from Florida and Sam Reinhart scores after a perfect pass from Gustav Forsling to take a 1-0 lead with a minute left in the period. Bobrovsky is the primary reason Florida ended the first
“You go through all your routines and everything throughout the year and you find out what works for you so that when you get in a moment like this, you know, you just do what you’ve done before,” the Panthers’ Evan Rodrigues said. “And that’s what we’ll do and play the same way we played all year. That’s kind of where our focus is.”
The second period opened up, with Edmonton dominating once again.
Another Florida turnover lead to a Warren Foegele breakaway, which he capitalized on with a perfect glove-side snipe to tie the game at one apiece.
The Oilers continued to control play by constantly having someone ready at the blue line to create an odd-man rush.
Out of respect for former Oilers’ goaltender Mike Smith, who was in the building tonight,
Stuart Skinner misplayed the puck, leading to an easy goal for Vladimir Tarasenko.
“It is disappointing being down 3-0 and we’ve got to let that reality sink in,” Skinner said. “I’m not too sure what the stats are coming back from it, but if anyone can do it it’s the Oil.”
For the rest of the period, the Oilers found themselves yielding odd-man rushes, which Skinner could not stop.
Sam Bennett scored after Darnell Nurse blew his defensive assignment, and a two-on-one rush was easily put in by Alexander Barkov.
Corey Perry gets checked into Bobrovsky and gets a goalie interference penalty. Bennett also goes to the box.
With 30 seconds left, Aaron Ekblad took a hooking penalty, and the Oilers finished the middle frame with a short four-on-three power play. Florida leads 4-1.
“There’s frustration that we’re down, but there’s a difference between frustration and quitting,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “There’s absolutely no quit. There’s belief that we can do this.”
After being unable to capitalize on the power play, the sense of defeat started to set in. Yet somehow, a shot by Philip Broberg sneaked past Bobrovsky and into the net. Bringing the game back to 4-2 and Igniting the city of Edmonton in the process.
After some good shifts by the Oilers, Florida started to settle down.
Florida was giving the Oilers a harder time with their zone entry attempts.
Yet, a perfect tip-in by Ryan McLeod from a Kulak shot makes it a one-goal game with just over five minutes remaining.1
:It was big for us,” Bennett saif of the second period for the Panthers. “Obviously, goals are tough to come by, especially in the Cup finals, so it was a big period for us. I think it just started with our defense, and that’s how we were able to generate that offense.”
Edmonton continued to press but was snake-bit by two non-tripping calls, which Oilers’ fans believed to be against the Panthers.
The Oilers were ultimately unable to tie up the game and fell to the Panthers 4-3. Now, the Florida Panthers are on the brink of lifting their first-ever Stanley Cup on Saturday, June 15th, at 8:00 PM EST in Edmonton.
“Well, it’s there for us but you don’t think about it,” Barkov said. “You can’t think about it. All you have to do is take one moment at a time. Right now, we have to enjoy this win. We battled really hard today and we had a good win and we’ll just enjoy this. Tomorrow, we need to recover and get ready for the game. That’s about it. We never think too much ahead.”
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