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» » How Oilers won Game 6 to force historic Game 7 vs. Panthers - The New York Times

How Oilers won Game 6 to force historic Game 7 vs. Panthers - The New York Times

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.

Edmonton’s 18 goals when facing elimination in this Stanley Cup Final put it one short of those 1942 Maple Leafs (19) for the most in NHL history. 

They have all the momentum heading into Game 7.

“It’s been a hell of a story so far, but at the end of the day, we play to win, and this is going to be the hardest game for us,” Oilers star Leon Draisaitl said. “They’re going to come out hard. They’re going to play at home. We have to bring our game again. I’m just really proud of the way we gave ourselves a chance. That’s what it’s all about.

“By no means is this going to be easy, a walk in the park. This is going to be the hardest game of the series. We know that. We’re aware of that. But that being said, really, really proud to give ourselves a chance.”

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Here are five takeaways on how the Oilers did so, bringing them to the brink of history.

Oilers dominate first

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

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

But to be as dominated as the Panthers were in the first and only be down by a goal had to feel like a win. Bobrovsky kept Florida in a game it had no right to be in.

Barkov goal comes off the board

Just 10 seconds after Henrique scored in the opening 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 from Carter Verhaeghe, who has been surprisingly quiet in the series. But the Oilers’ Kris Knoblauch issued the first coach’s challenge of the series, contending that Reinhart was offside as Verhaeghe walked the blue line.

After a long review, the linesmen, in concert with the NHL situation room in Toronto, ruled that Reinhart indeed was over the line by millimeters. The goal was wiped off the board and the cut-in-half deficit once again became two goals.

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

Maurice insinuated the Oilers must have had a different view than him.

“I have no idea (if officials got it right),” Maurice said. “It may well have been offside. The linesperson informed me that it was the last clip that they got where they made the decision that shows it’s offside. I don’t have those. I was upset after the call based on what I see at my feet, what my video person looks at. There was no way I would’ve challenged that if it was reversed.

“There was no way I thought you could conclusively say that was offside. I don’t know what (replay angles) the Oilers get. I don’t know what the league gets. I just know that I wouldn’t have challenged that based on what I saw.

“I’m not saying it’s not offside. We’ll get still frames. We’ll bring in the CIA. We’ll figure it out. But in the 30 seconds that I would have (to make) that call, I would not have challenged.”

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

Barkov would ultimately score a sensational goal in the third.

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Another Knoblauch lineup change works wonderfully

Foegele was elevated from the fourth line to play with Connor McDavid and Hyman for Games 4 and 5, bumping Ryan Nugent-Hopkins down to skate with Draisaitl and Dylan Holloway. It’s hard to argue with the move, given the results of those two contests.

Despite the success, though, Knoblauch opted to tinker with the top two lines ahead of Game 6, flipping Foegele and Nugent-Hopkins. His tweaking paid off — and early.

Foegele finished off a pass from Draisaitl on an odd-man rush 7:27 into the game for his third goal of the playoffs. That assist gave Draisaitl his third point of the series, following his two helpers in Game 4. Displeased with his performance, Draisaitl said in the morning that he was “excited to come into the series,” and he sure did that.

The Draisaitl-Foegele connection was just the latest example of a Knoblauch change working out. Throw in his handling of Skinner in the Vancouver Canucks series, moving Holloway up the lineup and making three changes ahead of Game 4 of the Western Conference final, and most of the coach’s decisions have turned to gold.

Hail the penalty kill

Where would the Oilers be without their work short-handed in these playoffs? The superstars, namely McDavid, get most of the limelight, but Edmonton wouldn’t be one win away from a Stanley Cup title without its penalty kill.

The Oilers thwarted three Panthers power plays and have now killed 46 of their past 47 penalties, including 21 straight at home.

But that’s not all. They also have two short-handed goals in the Cup Final, so they’ve outscored the Panthers 2-1 while down a skater. That’s the second straight series they’ve done that. Mattias Janmark recorded his first of two postseason shorties in the Western Conference final, which allowed the Oilers PK to best the Dallas Stars PP 1-0.

“For us to have gotten to this point, we’ve needed to flip our mindset with regards to defending and a big part of that is the penalty kill,” Hyman said. “The penalty kill has been phenomenal, probably more so than anyone thought it could.”

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

He hasn’t slowed down one bit in the postseason.

Hyman scored his second goal of the Stanley Cup Final at 18:20 of the second period. He did so by bolting ahead to grab the puck that Nugent-Hopkins blocked, pulling away from Ekblad, eluding a diving Gustav Forsling and backhanding a shot past Bobrovsky.

The goal was Hyman’s league-leading 16th of the postseason. The only players to record that many in a single playoffs in 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 back of Reggie Leach (Philadelphia Flyers, 1975) and Jari Kurri (Edmonton, 1985) for the all-time mark.

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

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

“It’s impressive,” Draisaitl said of Hyman. “He’s a heckuva hockey player. Very unique. He’s like a little bull. He jumps out of the gate like nobody can. His first couple of strides are so powerful, and I think you really see it today on the goal. He just explodes out of there and he’s gone, and he’s calm, cool and collected in front of the net. Just knows where to go. Really smart hockey player.”

(Photo: Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images)

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