The Best Finals in the Last 25 Years? Stanley Cup Finals Tied 2 - 2
An All-Time Great Series Heads Back to Edmonton, Now Best of 3
Game 3 - Florida 6 Edmonton 1
Back when the New England Patriots were in the midst of their near two-decade dominance in the NFL - there was always a feeling of inevitability in high stakes situations. No matter how strong another team started, or how much more skill they had, there was always a feeling that the longer the game went on - the Patriots would find a way, and more times than not it would be by simply not making the critical mistakes other teams would. Why am I talking about the NFL in a post about the Stanley Cup Final? Frankly, a play-by-play of a game that was only competitive for four minutes isn't a good use of anyone's time, or particularly interesting to read about. So I wanted to do something a little different here after Florida’s absolute drubbing of the Oilers 6-1 in Game 3. Like those 2000s Patriots (and now the Kansas City Chiefs), these Florida Panthers have taken on the allure of that “inevitable” juggernaut team that will make you beat yourself. I was being facetious earlier, the game actually was close until a few minutes into the second period, but from then on it was a complete meltdown by Edmonton, who played right into Florida’s hands by taking a parade of senseless and undisciplined penalties that gave Florida a significant amount of time with an extra skater to extend an early lead.
Edmonton took about 3 years worth of penalties throughout the game, and Florida took advantage on the scoreboard and to hijack the momentum the rest of the way. It’s almost impossible for highly skilled teams like the Oilers to establish momentum when constantly shorthanded, and the Oilers ended up taking a combined 85 penalty minutes in Game 3. The first game at Amerant Bank arena was a microcosm of what makes the Panthers so special - enough skill to play high-risk games, enough physicality and grit to beat you in a street fight, and enough mental savy to goad you into taking undisciplined penalties. The whole game was a masterclass by a team that has spent the last three years excelling in making teams beat themselves, and even a team with McDavid and Draisaitl couldn’t overcome the amount of mental errors and lack of discipline the Oilers showed on Monday night. While Edmonton has shown tremendous signs of resiliency this postseason, it feels like Florida has been doing this for so long, against so many different types of opponents, that they are going to be impossible to beat four times in seven games. Additionally, Florida’s incredible depth became a huge factor in the series as Tkachuk and Barkov have been mostly silent, combining for one point through three games. You absolutely need star players to win and carry your team, but eventually those players are going to have games where they do not score, and the rest of your roster needs to balance that out. So far Florida’s has, while Edmonton’s had decidedly not. Edmonton could certainly flush one bad game away, a blowout was likely to happen at least once in the series after two incredibly close games - but Game 3’s mental warfare felt like the schoolyard bully showing the upstarts that even though they learned some lessons, it’s going to take a lot more than a few good punches to knock these heavyweights out.
Game 4 - Edmonton 5 - Florida 4 (OT)
For about 20 minutes on Thursday night, the Game 3 diatribe above looked downright prophetic. I was already turning the wheel in my mind about just expanding the above into one long piece about how special the Florida Panthers are, and how they had staked their claim as one of the most dominant teams of the last thirty years - and took a stranglehold on the series, putting itself one win away from its second consecutive Stanley Cup. The first period might as well have been a fourth period of Game 3 - Edmonton continued to look daunted by the moment, gifting Florida power plays, and star Matthew Tkachuk finally broke through with 2 goals to give Florida what felt like an insurmountable 3-0 lead after one period.
Hockey Twitter was alive with “thanks for coming Edmonton” narratives, and most had turned the page to game 5. Teams were 0-37 in Stanley Cup Finals games when facing a 3 goal deficit after the first period. You were probably justified if you changed the channel to something else. This is what makes Hockey the absolute best though, particularly when two elite teams get together at this stage of the year, and absolutely lay everything on the line in order to hoist that 34-pound silver chalice. Stuart Skinner got pulled (think we clearly can remove him from the goalie battle in our narrative discussion) - and the Oilers came roaring back in the second and took the lead midway through the third period. Edmonton, who had already come back to win 8 games when trailing this playoff run, is showing its resiliency is not far off from Florida’s either, and displayed the kind of grit and fight that may have been imbued in their team culture after clawing back from a 3 game deficit in last year’s Finals. Not relying on its two generational players solely, or a parade of power play opportunities, Edmonton got its own contributions from depth players (defensemen Darnell Nurse and Jake Walman) to take what looked like the final lead late in the third period.
Had the match ended there, it would have already been a historic game - however Florida said “hold my beer”, and Sam Reinhart tied the game with 19.5 seconds left, sending Amerant Bank arena into absolute bedlam and sending the 3rd of 4 games into extra time.
Regardless of what the outcome was going to be here, this had already been one of the best Finals series in sports of the last twenty years. Multiple overtime games, two incredible teams staging comeback wins, star players delivering on the biggest stages - the championship round has been all a fan could've asked for and more from an entertainment perspective. The fact that Leon Draisaitl (Pippen to McDavid’s Jordan) scored ANOTHER OT game winner and sends this series back to Edmonton tied 2-2 makes it even more dramatic (Draisaitl is probably the favorite right now to win the playoff MVP if Edmonton wins), especially after Florida’s Sam Bennett hit the post minutes before, almost handing Florida a 3-1 series win. Florida now has to trek back to Edmonton haunted by a new reality. In two of the last three games, Edmonton has done the impossible against them. They became the first team in 32 tries to beat this Panthers squad after trailing by multiple goals. More historically, they became the first team in 38 attempts in the Stanley Cup Final to win a game they trailed by three goals after the first period.
Can Florida continue to exhibit championship poise and not let being so close to having a commanding lead affect them? Can Edmonton use this momentum from the brink of death to take control of the series and win two more games and deliver the cup to Canada for the first time in 32 years? Can Draisaitl and McDavid ascend to all-time great status with their first championship? Or will Florida’s own core cement itself as one of the legendary teams of the modern era? There are literally so many questions and narratives left to answer in this Stanley Cup Final, I managed to get to the end of this piece without mentioning that Taylor Swift was in the building.
