Edmonton Oilers rout Florida Panthers in Game 4 of Stanley Cup Final to keep series alive
As Paul Maurice prepared for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final, the first chance for his Florida Panthers to win the Stanley Cup and pull off a rare Stanley Cup Final sweep against the Edmonton Oilers, he acknowledged that there would be two energy sources in Edmonton’s Rogers Arena.
“One’s desperation and the other’s desire, for lack of another word,” Maurice said.
On this night, Edmonton’s desperation overpowered Florida’s desire.
The Oilers kept their season alive by routing the Panthers 8-1 on Saturday in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“We didn’t play as well as we wanted to,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “So that’s the end result. We lost. We’ve got to figure out now what we can do better and what we did well. That’s not the first time we lost in the playoffs.”
It is, however, the first time the Panthers lost when they had a chance to win the Stanley Cup. They never had a series lead in the Cup Final before this year, let alone a 3-0 series advantage. They were swept by the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 and lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games last season.
Both of those series also had at least one blowout defeat like the one Florida had Saturday. Vegas won the Cup last year with a 9-3 shelling of Florida in Game 5. The Avalanche crushed Florida in Game 2 of the 1996 series with an 8-1 win.
Unlike those series, the Panthers have a series lead this time around. They are up 3-1 on Edmonton and need only one more win to win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Florida swept the first two games at home 3-0 and 4-1 and then held off an Oilers comeback bid to win Game 3 in Edmonton 4-3.
“I don’t believe in momentum at all,” Maurice said, “because I would have been wrong at 3-nothing. You just re-establish your game and you come back in the fight. I’ll fire up at least once cliche for you so you have something there: We came into Edmonton to get a split and we got what we needed, but there’s also reason for that. Most cliches have some merit to it. In general, things will be far more extreme outside your room than inside it. So at 3-nothing, we’re not sitting there getting the engravers out. We lost the game tonight. I’m pretty sure — I’ve got to check, possibly — but there’s going to be a Game 5.”
That Game 5 will be Tuesday at Amerant Bank Arena, the first of two potential home games to wrap up the series.
But Florida knows it needs to be better — much better — than it was on Saturday to make sure there isn’t a Game 6.
Edmonton blitzed Florida early, scoring three goals in the first period and chasing Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky after scoring two more goals in the first five minutes of the second to take a commanding 5-1 lead. They won the rush game — something Florida has normally been strong at defending — and the Panthers’ defense played a bit too loose to contain the Oilers’ firepower.
Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique, Dylan Holloway, Connor McDavid and Darnell Nurse scored the goals against Bobrovsky.
Anthony Stolarz replaced Bobrovsky in net, making his first career playoff (and Stanley Cup Final) appearance in the process, and gave up three goals — the first by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with the Oilers on a five-on-three power plays, the others by Dylan Holloway and Ryan McLeod late in the third — while facing 19 shots.
Fifteen Oilers were on the scoresheet, led by McDavid’s four points (one goal, three assists). Holloway had two goals and an assist. Janmark had a goal and an assist. Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman each had a pair of assists.
Florida’s only goal came 11:26 in the first period when Vladimir Tarasenko tipped in a long shot from defenseman Gustav Forsling.
Other than that, Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner was stellar with arguably his best performance of the series. Skinner stopped 32 of 33 shots he faced.
Now, that said, it’s one game in the grand scheme of things. The Panthers’ priority now is making sure the Oilers don’t build on this performance as the series continues.
“At the end of the day, it’s just back to the drawing board,” star Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk said. “We win, we learn from it and we put it aside. We lose, same thing. We’re in an unbelievable spot right now. We came here after all that craziness and got a split and we’re going home in front of our unbelievable fans that are so excited to see us and we’re so excited to play in front of them again.”
