The good news for Edmonton Oilers fans is Connor McDavid scored. The bad news is that Brad Marchand scored more for the Florida Panthers.
Florida took another step towards a repeat Stanley Cup thanks to a 5-2 victory on Edmonton ice to push the series to 3-2.
Edmonton came out with vigor, and Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky had to be sharp. Connor Brown got the first good chance of the game with an early breakaway, but ‘Bob’ was there to make the stop. When Bobrovsky needed help, his defensemen and forwards did a great job either clearing pucks out of danger or getting their sticks in lanes to deflect away potential Oilers chances.
That solid play paid off midway through the period when Marchand made an incredibly heady play off a center-ice faceoff.
Marchand anticipated the draw and grabbed the puck, losing Vasily Podkolzin in the process. Marchand then snuck through the Edmonton defense and put a wrister past Calvin Pickard for a 1-0 Cats lead. No. 63 nearly helped Florida get another when he sent a pass across Pickard to a wide-open Eetu Luostarinen, but the big Finn couldn’t get enough on the puck.
The Panthers would indeed get their two-goal lead late in the first, however. Edmonton D-man Evan Bouchard blocked a Matthew Tkachuk shot, but the rebound went to Sam Bennett, who rifled one in from between the hashmarks.
Florida got into a bit of penalty trouble in the second, but came out unscathed. Bobrovsky bobbled a shot and had to be sharp on the Corey Perry rebound and McDavid hit the post another time, but close doesn’t count.
Things really revved up in the third and once again, Marchand was in the thick of it. On a very similar play to his first goal, the veteran jumped on the puck off a faceoff and dashed down the ice. This time, he flipped the puck through defenseman Jake Walman before going backhand on Pickard, all with Perry right on his back.
The 3-0 lead was shortlived, as McDavid finally got a goal in the series (though for the record, his assists have been all-timers). The Oilers captain took a nifty pass from Bouchard and buried one in tight on Bobrovsky.
Undaunted, Florida pushed the lead back when Aleksander Barkov stole the puck off Perry behind the Edmonton net, centering a pass for Sam Reinhart, who made no mistake with a wrister to make it 4-1.
In desperation, the Oilers pulled their goalie with five minutes remaining and it nearly paid off soon after, when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ shot deflected off Niko Mikkola’s stick and hit the post.
But it was Perry getting the next goal, spinning around from near the blueline with a shot that fooled Bobrovsky with a little more than three minutes to go.
The drama ended with a little more than a minute to play when Luostarinen air-mailed an empty-netter from his own zone to give Florida a comfortable 5-2 lead.
The Oilers are now on the brink of elimination in the Cup final yet again. Last year, they won three straight games to force a Game 7. They just need to win one to tie the series at 3-3, but their opponent is on the edge of glory.
Florida has a chance to clinch back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in Game 6 on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET in front of its home fans.
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