EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid was held without a point, so Leon Draisaitl and other top players for the Edmonton Oilers stepped up on their home ice to put the club one win from what had once seemed an improbable NHL championship.
Draisaitl made his first major impact in the Stanley Cup Final by setting up Warren Foegele’s early goal, Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman scored in the second period, and the Oilers forced Game 7 by beating the Florida Panthers 5-1 on Friday night to even up the best-of-seven series.
Now it’s going back to South Florida one more time, with the decisive matchup set for Monday night in Sunrise.
“We play to win, and this is going to be the hardest game for us,” Draisaitl said. “We have to bring our game again.”
The Oilers are the first team to tie the series count after falling behind 3-0 since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. Edmonton now has the chance to become just the second team to come all the way back from that deficit to hoist the Stanley Cup; the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942 are the only ones to pull off that feat so far.
“There was an unshakable belief,” Hyman said. “No matter what happened throughout the year, we always believed we could pull through. No matter how dire the circumstances, we think we have a chance. It was a long season facing adversity which prepared us.
“The next one will be the hardest. It feels unbelievable to do it in front of this crowd. To have a chance to win now, this is our first opportunity to win.”
The opportunity to make hockey history and end Canada’s three-decade drought without an NHL championship team exists only after McDavid’s heroics with four points apiece in the fourth and fifth games to take the Oilers from the brink of elimination to belief. This was the first time in the three-time NHL MVP’s nine-year career in which Edmonton has won a game in which he did not have a point or put a shot on net.
Draisaitl, McDavid’s longtime running mate from Germany who has also been league MVP and considered among the best players in the world, lit the spark this time after being largely ineffective against the Panthers earlier in the series.
“He’s a horse,” defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “He’s always showing up at the biggest moments. You look at all his playoff performances, he’s one of the best to ever do it.”
Draisaitl took possession at center ice, skated around and through Florida defenders, then put the puck on the tape of Foegele’s stick for a tap-in goal that Sergei Bobrovsky had nearly no chance of stopping. That, of course, did not stop the fired-up sellout crowd of 18,000-plus from mockingly chanting “Ser-gei! Ser-gei!” — just as they did continually throughout the night.
The goalie everyone calls “Bob” was hardly to blame, though, with mistakes in front of him also contributing to the 2-on-1 rush that ended with Henrique beating Bobrovsky off a perfect pass from Mattias Janmark. The Panthers looked tight, timid and unlike the juggernaut that reached the Stanley Cup Final for a second consecutive year and won the first three games to move to the verge of the first title for a franchise that began competition in 1993.
The Canadian Press photo by Jeff McIntosh via AP / Edmonton Oilers center Adam Henrique celebrates after scoring against the visiting Florida Panthers during the second period of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday night.Florida won 3-0 on June 8 and 4-1 on June 10 at home before winning 4-3 on June 13 in Edmonton. Two days later, the Oilers started their turnaround at home with an 8-1 blowout victory, and they won 5-3 at Florida on Tuesday before adding another multigoal triumph Friday night.
“We have one game to go,” Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. “We were ready right from the start to play a seven-game series, and nothing changes now. We got up three, and they played three good games. Now it’s up to us to win at home.”
Florida had just six shots on net midway through the game and finished with 21. Continuing a trend of being there when the Oilers need him the most, Stuart Skinner made timely saves to stymie the Panthers, whose only goal came from Aleksander Barkov less than 90 seconds into the third period.
“He’s been lights out when we’ve needed him,” Janmark said of Skinner.
The first time Barkov got the puck past him, 10 seconds after Henrique scored, the goal came off the board when Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch successfully challenged for offside. A lengthy review found Sam Reinhart entered the offensive zone perhaps an inch or less before the puck, the announcement of which was followed by a roar from fans.
“I actually didn’t think it was that close,” Knoblauch said. “In my mind, it was definitely offside.”
That was not the loudest Rogers Place got, and there were plenty of candidates for that distinction. The decibel meter shown on video screens reached 113.8 when the Oilers stepped onto the ice to the tune of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
It might have approached that noise level when Ryan McLeod and Nurse scored empty-netters in the final minutes, setting off chants of “We want the Cup!” “We want the Cup!” and a wild celebration at the viewing party outside.
It was in the house in case the Panthers put away the series; instead, it’s got another trip to make before the 2023-24 NHL season comes to a close, and it very well might wind up in the Oilers’ possession for the sixth time.
“You’ve suffered a defeat, you feel it, it hurts,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “You lick your wounds, and we start building that back tomorrow. But who you are tonight means nothing to who you’re going to be two days from now.”
Downtown was awash in a sea of blue and orange in the hours before the puck dropped Friday, which might as well have been a holiday in Edmonton, the home of nearly a million people now fully able to let themselves dream of the Oilers adding another white championship banner to the rafters — and do so in the most improbable way possible.
“We’re just excited to keep our season going,” McDavid said. “That’s what it’s been about. One game at a time, one day at a time. Looking forward to the next one.”