The Florida Panthers took a 2-0 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final with a 4-1 home-ice win over the Edmonton Oilers Monday night.
“It’s another opportunity for our group to come together and dig our way out,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said after the game.
“It’s supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to be difficult and I am excited to see what our group is made of.”
The Panthers recorded the game’s first six shots on net and had a golden opportunity to score first when the Oilers’ Warren Foegele was assessed a five-minute major for kneeing the Panthers’ Eetu Luostarinen. However, Edmonton’s Mattias Janmark was tripped by Florida’s Oliver Ekman-Larsson while killing the penalty. With the teams playing four-on-four, Mattias Ekholm beat Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on a two-on-one to make it 1-0 Oilers with 8:43 left in the first. It was the Oilers’ first shot of the game.
The Panthers carried most of the play in the second and tied it up on a shot by Niko Mikkola with 10:26 left in the period.
Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner made a big save on Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk on a two-on-one. On a Panthers power play, he denied a point-blank look from Sam Bennett. Florida outshot Edmonton 13-3 in the second.
Early in the third, Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues picked off Evan Bouchard’s clearing attempt and beat Skinner over the blocker. Rodrigues added a power-play redirection goal with 7:34 on the clock to make it 3-1 and ended the Oilers’ consecutive penalty kill streak at 34.
The Oilers pulled Skinner for an extra attacker with 5:53 left and went on the power play not long after when Ekman-Larsson shot the puck over the glass. However, the Oilers couldn’t break through. Panthers defenceman Aaron Ekblad scored into an empty net with 2:28 to go.
“We’ve got to be better,” McDavid said.
“I thought they went up a level and we didn’t match it today.”
Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse barely played after taking a hit from Rodrigues in the first period. Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov didn’t return after taking an elbow from Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl halfway through the third.
The Panthers outshot the Oilers 28-19.
“We just have to take it one game at a time,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said.
“I don’t see any reason to panic or do anything drastic.”
The Oilers will host Game 3 on Thursday. You can listen to the game live on 630 CHED, beginning with The Faceoff Show at 4 p.m. The actual game starts at 6 p.m.
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