The Edmonton Oilers have done the unthinkable and come all the way back from an 0-3 series deficit to force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final. It all started a week ago today when the Oilers, who were just trying not to get swept, scored eight goals (5 against Sergei Bobrovsky) in an 8-1 drubbing of the Panthers. Teams up 3-0 in a series usually get a pass for a loss in Game 4 for a couple different reasons, none of them good. People will say, “Coach probably just wanted to give his first line guys some more rest” or “they probably just want to win it on their home ice in front of their crowd”. But what is unique about hockey and especially playoff hockey, is if you allow a team to find the slightest crack in the dam, they might bust open the flood gates on you. Edmonton did just that. Game 5, the Oilers came out quickly, put the panthers in an uncomfortable spot, and then Connor McDavid took over. Edmonton wins Game 5, 5-3. All of a sudden, Florida is looking around realizing they have to fly 2,500+ miles back to Alberta, and they’re not sitting on that cushy lead anymore. No, now the Panthers are in murky waters.
It was almost déjà vu for the Panthers as the Oilers got out to another early lead after Warren Foegele found himself with a wide-open side of the net and netted it to make it 1-0. But the biggest play of the game, and maybe the series, came right after the Oilers second goal. Aleksander Barkov scored a goal to make it 2-1 and seemingly get Florida back in the finals. The Panthers desperately needed this goal to stop the bleeding. But the Oilers wisely challenged the play, and it was ruled that Florida was offsides, no goal. Panthers coach Paul Maurice became unglued. He laid into the referees for what felt like a TV-timeout, he was livid and understandably so. The offside was so razor thin it really could have gone either way. It reminds us of the age-old question in the NFL, what is a catch? There was one, maybe two camera angles played that showed the Panthers were indeed offside, and I think deep down Maurice knew that. I think Maurice was trying to rally his guys like a baseball manager does when he argues with an umpire. Imagine how deflating that feeling must be, you were up 3-0 in the series and in the blink of an eye you are staring down the barrel of a Game 7 and you just got a goal stripped away.
The Panthers couldn’t recover from this and lost Game 6, 5-1. The look on the faces of the Panthers bench was disgust, disbelief, and ‘I’d rather be anywhere but here right now’. Florida has put themselves in such an awkward position because they can still win it all at home, but it all depends on how Paul Maurice motivates his group in the coming days. Which brings us to winner-take-all Game 7. Edmonton would become only the 5th team in NHL history to come back from an 0-3 deficit in the playoffs and would be the 2nd team since the 1942 Maple Leafs to do it in the Stanley Cup Final. This series has delivered so much drama and we can only hope for more on Monday night. Puck drop 7 PM CT on ABC.
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