Edmonton Heartbreak: Panthers cut short Oilers’ comeback to win Stanley Cup at home in Game 7

by Daniel Neuner

Heartache for the heartland of hockey. On June 24, the Florida Panthers snatched the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history. But on the other side of this long-time-coming victory in Miami was a dream crushed for the Edmonton Oilers, who were just two goals away from becoming the first Canadian NHL champion in 31 years.

The final buzzer of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals marked a 3-0 lead for the Panthers. Despite outshooting Florida by twelve shots, Edmonton lost the game 4-3 due to a miraculous 32-save performance by Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. The Cup was falling out of reach for Edmonton.

“We’re trying to figure them out. Obviously, we haven’t beaten them in three games. We’ve had stretches of good, we’ve had stretches of bad,” said captain Connor McDavid following the Game 3 defeat.

Game 4, like Game 3, was set for Alberta. Since no air travel was required in between the two games, the teams had just one day of rest and preparation to gear up for battle. 

While it can’t be determined who the driving force was in the Edmonton locker room that shifted things for the Oilers, a good guess would be McDavid. The captain notched a goal and three assists in Game 4 to lead his side to an 8-1 victory and surpass Wayne Gretzky’s 31-assist postseason record. 

“He just continues to impress everyone,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch after the game.

Thanks to McDavid’s heroics, the Oilers prevented themselves from suffering the first Stanley Cup Finals sweep of the 21st century. But 2,541 miles away, Game 5 awaited them in a hot and hostile Florida climate.

“It doesn’t matter if you score eight or if you score one. It’s just one win, and we got to go to Florida and do a job and drag them back to Alberta,” said McDavid.

In the first five minutes of Game 5, Edmonton went on the penalty kill. But a broken-up pass on the Panthers’ subpar power play caused the Oilers to strike first with a short-handed goal for the second consecutive game.

Ahead by a goal after a period of play, Edmonton was blessed with a power play of their own to begin the second period. In the last three seconds of the man-advantage, defenseman Evan Bouchard unloaded a blistering slap shot that snuck past Bobrovsky for a 2-0 Edmonton lead.

Three minutes later, McDavid found the back of the net. In the beginning of the series, it seemed that Sergei Bobrovsky and the Panthers had built an impenetrable defense, but the Oilers were rewriting that story.

A shift of hard forechecking was all it took, though, for the Panthers to force Oiler Dylan Holloway into a turnover. Florida star Matthew Tkachuk capitalized on the chance to trim the Oilers lead to two.

But with eight minutes left in the second period, McDavid put on a show, stick handling through the entire Florida defense and finding Corey Perry on the backdoor for a beautiful goal. 10 seconds later, a scrum in front of the Oilers’ net ended with the puck trickling across Edmonton’s goal line off of Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse’s glove.

The Oilers entered the third period with a 2-goal cushion that was cut in half by a Panthers goal from Oliver Ekman-Larsson in between the faceoff circles. Ekman-Larsson's early third period goal was the only scoring luck the Panthers had, forcing them to pull their goalie in the final moments of the game.

With just over a minute left, the puck slid down the ice and glanced off the post of Florida’s empty net—a certain goal if not for the Panthers’ backchecking effort against Oilers forward Mattias Janmark.

As the clock ran down, the puck was again headed for Florida’s empty net. That was until Tkachuk raced down the ice and dove to save the puck on the goal line. The rebound, however, was put away by McDavid, who solidified the Oilers’ Game 5 win with his second four-point performance in a row.

“We did a really good job at the beginning of the series of building that [3-game] lead, so really nothing changes from tonight’s mindset,” said Tkachuk, looking ahead to Game 6.

Creating a sea of orange in the stands, Edmonton fans at Rogers Place were electric for Game 6. This energy transferred to the ice as forward Warren Foegele cashed in on a spectacular saucer pass from assistant captain Leon Draisaitl to give Edmonton the lead after seven and a half minutes of play.

Ahead a goal after the first intermission, the Oilers entered the second period hungry for more. It only took 45 seconds for them to pad their lead to two goals; Janmark put the puck on a platter for linemate Adam Henrique, who buried the puck into the back of the net after it kissed the post on the way in.

The Oilers didn’t have much time to enjoy their two-goal cushion before the puck went the other way. 11 seconds after Henrique’s goal, the Panthers found the back of the net via a rebound goal from captain Aleksander Barkov. Hoping for an offside ruling upon review to overturn the goal, the Edmonton coaching staff officially challenged the play. This played out to be an excellent decision, with the goal being disallowed moments later.

The Panthers bombarded the Oilers’ defense with a plethora of scoring chances in the first half of the second period. A mid-period Florida power play was killed off by Edmonton’s supreme penalty kill unit. 

The Oilers’ gritty defense preserved their lead in the second period, and the lead was extended in the final two minutes before intermission, when winger Zach Hyman flew down the ice on a breakaway and scored a decisive back-hander under the arm of Bobrovsky.

As McDavid had for Edmonton in the two games prior, Barkov led convincingly as captain, rallying his troops in the third period for an early goal that shaved the Panthers’ deficit back down to two goals.

Unlike McDavid, however, Barkov’s performance wasn’t enough to change the course of the game. The Panthers came up empty-handed for the rest of the third period, and Edmonton scored twice on their empty net to guarantee Game 7 with a 5-1 win.

Although Game 7 was held in Miami, crowds of Oilers fans made the eight-hour flight to witness history. The vocal crowd of Edmonton fans belting out the Canadian national anthem before the game was about as loud as the Americans during their home anthem.

But it wasn’t long before the home horn rang at the Amerant Bank Arena. In the opening five minutes, Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe redirected a shot in mid-air to send it through the five-hole of Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner and give Florida a pivotal, early lead.

Two minutes later, Oilers defenseman Cody Cece caught the Panthers’ defensive pair sleeping and connected with Janmark down the ice. Janmark capitalized on the breakaway and equalized the game at one goal apiece. It was a strong response for Edmonton in a game that could have quickly fell out of reach after such an undesirable start.

Janmark’s goal kickstarted offensive momentum for Edmonton. They enjoyed a lot of offensive zone time in the later part of the first period. Unfortunately for them, the scoreboard remained unchanged.

An early second period power play looked to be the prime opportunity for the Oilers to take control of the game. But Bobrovsky’s excellent goaltending and the Panthers’ high-pressure defense held the Oilers out of the net.

In a frustrating sequence for Edmonton, the Panthers knocked the puck off their own goal line and proceeded to go down the ice and score a goal in a matter of seconds. With five minutes left in the second period, there was still plenty of time for the Oilers to respond. Florida undoubtedly had the upper hand, though—they were undefeated in the playoffs when leading after two periods.

Edmonton had to waste time fighting off a Florida power play at the beginning of the third period. Later on, they got back to generating chances.

With seven minutes left on the clock, McDavid’s and Hyman’s rebound attempts were both denied on the crease by Bobrovsky. It was the last major chance for Edmonton to find the back of the net.

The Panthers lodged the puck into the corner as time expired and their childhood dreams came true. Gloves and helmets flew into the air, and the arena exploded with excitement.

“It’s not a dream anymore,” realized Tkachuk after hoisting the Stanley Cup. “It’s not a dream. It’s reality. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

Even though they came up short, Edmonton’s studs dominated the stat sheets. The top three point leaders in the playoffs were all Oilers (McDavid, Bouchard, and Draisaitl) and had a combined 81 goals and assists in the postseason. And despite Bobrovsky’s heroics throughout the postseason, McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy for playoffs MVP. He was the first player since 2003 to win the award as a member of the losing team.

“We knew it was gonna be tight…Game 7 for the Cup. We knew it was gonna be a real tight game and it was gonna came down to one thing here or there. We’re an inch away from going ahead 2-1 before they go up 2-1. It’s tough,” said McDavid after the loss.

Tkachuk won his first Stanley Cup after eight seasons in the league. Only Verhaeghe (Lightning, 2020) and Vladimir Tarasenko (Blues, 2019) of the Panthers had lifted the trophy prior to that night. A dream may have been squashed for Edmonton, but another one was made true in Florida.