EDMONTON — Thousands of fans wearing orange and blue were partying at Rogers Place and on the streets of Alberta’s capital on Friday night.
After being counted out by just about everybody outside of their dressing room when they were down 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Final, the Edmonton Oilers have done the improbable, forcing a Game 7 on Monday with a 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers.
For a team that was tied for last place in the 32-team NHL on Nov. 9 and trailed in earlier playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars, it’s almost fitting.
The Oilers are only the third team in NHL history to win three games when facing 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 job is not done,” said Zach Hyman, who scored a breakaway goal in the game. “It’s a great story but you need to finish it. Everybody will forget if we don’t finish it. That’s the key. It’s great to give them a moment like that, but I think they’re waiting for a bigger moment.”
It was a dominant performance from start to finish Friday, with the Oilers giving up two shots on goal in the first period and zero to 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 in this postseason with 16 goals. Add in his regular season, and he has 70 goals during this tremendous 2023-24 campaign.
Aleksander Barkov, who had a goal wiped off the board early in the second period when Sam Reinhart was ruled offside after a coach’s challenge, scored a highlight-reel goal in the third period to pull the Panthers within 3-1.
Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner stopped 19 of 20 shots — and picked up an assist on Nurse’s goal — while the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 16 of 19 shots.
Continue reading.
GO FURTHER
How Oilers won Game 6 vs. Panthers, bringing them to brink of historic Stanley Cup comeback: 5 takeaways
