How the Oilers won Game 6 to force historic Game 7 against the Panthers

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EDMONTON — Thousands of fans dressed in orange and blue celebrated at Rogers Place and on the streets of Alberta’s capital Friday evening.

After being shut out by almost everyone outside their locker room while trailing 3-0 in the Stanley Cup final, the Edmonton Oilers did the improbable by forcing a Game 7 Monday with a 5-1 victory against the Florida Panthers. .

For a team that was tied for last of the 32 NHL teams on Nov. 9 and trailed in previous playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars, that’s almost fitting.

The Oilers are only the third team in NHL history to win three games from elimination in the Stanley Cup Final. The others were the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1945 Detroit Red Wings. The 1942 Leafs are the only team in NHL history to come back from a 3–0 deficit and win the Stanley Cup .

So far.

“The work is not done,” said Zach Hyman, who scored a breakaway goal in the game. “It’s a beautiful story but it needs to be finished. Everyone will forget if we don’t finish it. That’s the key. It’s great to give them a moment like this, but I think they’re waiting for a bigger moment.

It was a dominant performance from start to finish Friday, with the Oilers allowing two shots on goal in the first period and none to the Panthers forwards until more than halfway through the game.

Warren Foegele and Adam Henrique also scored for the Oilers, and Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse added empty-netters. Hyman now leads all scorers this postseason with 16 goals. Add in his regular season, and he has 70 goals during this tremendous 2023-24 campaign.

Aleksander Barkov, who saw a goal wiped off the board early in the first period when Sam Reinhart was ruled offside after a coach’s challenge, scored a go-ahead goal in the third period to bring the Panthers within 3-1 .

Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner stopped 19 of 20 shots – and had an assist on Nurse’s goal – while the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 16 of 19 shots.

Edmonton’s 18 goals in the face of elimination in the Stanley Cup final put them one shy of that. Maple leaves from 1942 (19) for the most in NHL history.

They have all the momentum going into Game 7.

“It’s been a hell of a story so far, but at the end of the day we’re playing to win, and this is going to be the toughest game for us,” Oilers star Leon Draisaitl said. “They’re going to come out strong. They are going to play at home. We have to bring our game back. I’m really, really proud of the way we gave ourselves a chance. That’s the whole story.

“This is by no means going to be easy, a walk in the park. This will be the most difficult game in the series. We know that. We are aware of this. But that being said, I’m really, really proud to give us a chance.

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Oil companies dominate first

Rogers Place was buzzing before the game, and the fans had plenty of reason to bring electricity throughout the first period as the Oilers dominated virtually every second of play. They outscored the Panthers 11-2 in the chapter of shots, allowing no shots during their only penalty. Florida’s only shots came from veteran third-pairing defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

The Oilers took a 1-0 lead for the third straight game on Foegele’s goal after Aaron Ekblad, who has shown cracks throughout the series, did the splits and tripped. Foegele also fell to the ice, but quickly got back up and received a pass from Draisaitl for a one-timer through the back door, the forward’s third goal in 21 games.

But being as outplayed as the Panthers were in the first and only trailing by one goal had to feel like a victory. Bobrovsky held Florida in a game it had no right to be a part of.

Barkov’s goal goes off the board

Just 10 seconds after Henrique scored in the first minute of the second period to give Edmonton a 2-0 lead, the Panthers got what they thought was a huge goal from Barkov after a strong zone entry by Carter Verhaeghe, who has been surprisingly quiet in the playoffs. But the Oilers’ Kris Knoblauch issued the first coaching challenge of the series, saying Reinhart was offside as Verhaeghe crossed the blue line.

After a lengthy review, the linesmen, in conjunction with the NHL Situation Room in Toronto, ruled that Reinhart had indeed crossed the line by a few millimeters. The goal was wiped off the board and the halved deficit became two goals again.

To say the least, Panthers coach Paul Maurice was not happy.

Maurice insinuated that the Oilers must have a different point of view than him.

“I have no idea (if officials got it right),” Maurice said. “There might well be an offside. The linesman informed me that this was the last clip they got where they made the decision that shows it was offside. I do not have them. I was upset after the call because of what I see at my feet, what my videographer is looking at. There’s no way I could have argued with that if the situation had been undone.

“I didn’t think you could conclusively say there was offside. I don’t know what (replay angles) the Oilers are getting. I don’t know what the league gets. I just know I wouldn’t have disputed that based on what I saw.

“I’m not saying it’s not offside. We will have still images. We will call the CIA. We will find out. But in the 30 seconds I had (to make) that call, I wouldn’t have argued.

That must have felt like a mountain re-summit for Florida.

Barkov would finally score a sensational goal in the third.

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Another Knoblauch lineup change works wonders

Foegele was elevated from the fourth line to play with Connor McDavid and Hyman for Games 4 and 5, pushing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins back to skate with Draisaitl and Dylan Holloway. It is difficult to argue with this decision, given the results of these two competitions.

Despite the success, Knoblauch opted to tinker with the top two lines before Game 6, knocking down Foegele and Nugent-Hopkins. His adjustments paid off – and early on.

Foegele completed a pass from Draisaitl on an odd-man run at 7:27 of the game for his third goal of the playoffs. The assist gave Draisaitl his third point of the series, following his two assists in Game 4. Unhappy with his performance, Draisaitl said in the morning that he was “excited to be in the series,” and he certainly did.

The Draisaitl-Foegele connection was just the latest example of a change at Knoblauch. Add in his handling of Skinner in the Vancouver Canucks series, moving Holloway up the lineup and making three changes before Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, and most of the coach’s decisions have turned into Golden.

Salute the penalty

Where would the Oilers be without their shorthanded work in these playoffs? Superstars, notably McDavid, take center stage, but Edmonton wouldn’t be one win away from a Stanley Cup title without its power play.

The Oilers have thwarted three Panthers power plays and have now killed 46 of their last 47 penalties, including 21 in a row at home.

But that’s not all. They also scored two shorthanded goals in the Cup final, so they outscored the Panthers 2-1 despite being down one skater. This is the second series in a row that they’ve done this. Mattias Janmark recorded his first of two playoff shorties in the Western Conference Finals, helping the Oilers PK beat the Dallas Stars PP 1-0.

“To get to this point, we had to change our mindset when it came to defense and a lot of that has to do with the penalty kill,” Hyman said. “The penalty was phenomenal, probably more than anyone thought.”

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Hyman scoring 54 goals during the regular season was one of the best stories of the 2023-24 campaign. Considering his age and where he was drafted, he was one of the most improbable 50-goal scorers in NHL history.

He didn’t slow down at all in the playoffs.

Hyman scored his second goal of the Stanley Cup Final at 18:20 of the second period. He did so by taking the puck blocked by Nugent-Hopkins, moving away from Ekblad, eluding a diving Gustav Forsling and firing a backhand shot past Bobrovsky.

The goal was Hyman’s 16th of the playoffs. The only players to record that many in the playoffs over the past 30 years are Joe Sakic (18 for the Colorado Avalanche in 1996) and Pavel Bure (16 for Vancouver in 1994). That leaves him three behind Reggie Leach (Philadelphia Flyers, 1975) and Jari Kurri (Edmonton, 1985) for the all-time record.

The marker was also Hyman’s 70th in 2023-24 (regular season and playoffs), tying him with Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place.

McDavid, with 72 last season (64 in the regular season and eight in the playoffs), is the only active player to have more in a single campaign.

“It’s impressive,” Draisaitl said of Hyman. “He’s a hell of a hockey player. Very unique. He’s like a little bull. He jumps out the door like no one else can. His first strides are so powerful, and I think you really see it today on goal. He explodes and he’s gone, and he’s calm, cool and collected in front of the net. He knows just where to go. Really smart hockey player.

(Photo: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)





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