Edmonton, Alberta (WGR Sports Radio 550) - It has only happened four times in the history of the National Hockey League. Of those four instances, it has only happened once in the Stanley Cup Final, and that was 82 years ago.
Come Monday night back in Sunrise, Florida, the Edmonton Oilers will look to make history with a fourth-straight win over the Panthers to become the first team since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs to win a Stanley Cup after trailing a series 3-0 in games.
Facing elimination once again on home ice at Rogers Place, the Oilers put up a complete team effort in front of a raucous Edmonton crowd, dominating the Panthers en route to a 5-1 win in Game 6 to even the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at 3-3.
Edmonton got the scoring started less than eight minutes into the opening period when winger Warren Foegele was able to deposit a puck past Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky off a cross-ice feed from Leon Draisaitl on the rush.
Florida looked flat in the opening 20 minutes of play with just two shots on goal compared to Edmonton's 11 shots on net.
Early in the second period, the Oilers extended their lead to 2-0 when the Panthers got caught in a bad change, leading to a 2-on-1 rush for Mattias Janmark and Adam Henrique. Janmark fed the veteran Henrique for his fourth goal of the postseason.
Just moments later, the Panthers thought they had scored to pull to within a goal courtesy of captain Aleksander Barkov. However, Edmonton challenged the play to be offside, and by the slightest of margins, the call was overturned and the scored remained 2-0 in favor of the Oilers.
The Panthers continued to press into the dying moments of the second period, but a critical mistake at the Edmonton blue line led to a breakaway the other way for winger Zach Hyman, who beat Bobrovsky on the backhand for his league-leading 16th goal of the playoffs.
Despite Barkov scoring for Florida to make it 3-1 just 88 seconds into the third period, that was as close as the Panthers got against Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, who went on to stop 20-of-21 shots faced in the game.
Edmonton ended up adding empty-net goals from Ryan McLeod and Henrique to capture the 5-1 victory and force the series back to Amerant Bank Arena in South Florida for Game 7 on Monday night.
In the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers were, arguably, the better hockey team, outscoring the Oilers, 11-4, despite being outshot and outchanced by a substantial margin. Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was playing at a Vezina Trophy caliber, putting up a 1.33 goals-against average, a .953 save percentage and a Game 1 shutout.
Since Florida's Game 3 win in Edmonton, the Oilers have dug deep to reach another level of their game in order to storm back in the series. Between Games 4 and 6, the script has completely flipped with Edmonton outscoring the Panthers, 18-5, and being outshot and outchanced more often than not.
In the Edmonton net, Skinner has really helped backstop the Oilers with a 1.67 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage over the last three Stanley Cup Final games.
In Games 4 and 5, Oilers captain Connor McDavid became the first player in league history to put up eight points (3+5) in a two-game span. He took the bull by the horns to help lead Edmonton to important victories in those games.
In Game 6, McDavid was actually held pointless and without a shot on goal, but the Oilers still prevailed with a complete effort from start-to-finish to push the series to a seventh do-or-die game.
In the Stanley Cup Final, McDavid leads all skaters with 11 points (3+8) in six games played. Overall, the 27-year-old has already put up one of the greatest postseason runs in NHL history with 42 points (8+34) in 24 games. His 34 assists are the most in Stanley Cup Playoffs history, while his 42 points is just five points behind Wayne Gretzky (1985) for the most in a single playoffs.
Edmonton's next best scorer behind McDavid in the Final has been Foegele, who has a pair of goals and three assists for five points in six games.
As for Draisaitl, he has only produced three assists in the Stanley Cup Final, and has struggled to get into a groove throughout. However, his assist on Foegele's goal Friday may help get him going ahead of Game 7 on Monday.
While Bobrovsky has done all he can to help keep the Panthers afloat, the group in front of him has lost its scoring touch, especially from a few key contributors to the team's overall success this season.
Evan Rodrigues is Florida's leading scorer in the Stanley Cup Final with six points (4+2), while Barkov is right behind with five points (2+3) in six games played.
While Sam Bennett has put up four points (1+3) for the Panthers, he has cost his team with some poor decisions with the puck over the last three games, resulting in a minus-5 rating for the series.
Matthew Tkachuk has also looked rather pedestrian in the series overall with just a goal and two assists in six games played. He is also a minus-5 in the series overall.
Meanwhile, the Panthers have gotten little-to-no scoring from other key players to the offense including Sam Reinhart (57 goals in the regular season) and Carter Verhaeghe (34 goals in the regular season). Verhaeghe has also been a disaster defensively in the Final with a minus-9 rating.
Game 7 is set for an 8 p.m. ET faceoff on Monday.
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