The Florida Panthers are one win away from their first Stanley Cup championship.
Captain Aleksander Barkov set up a goal and scored another, Sergei Bobrovsky made some of the biggest of his 32 saves to thwart a comeback bid, and the Panthers held on to beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in Game 3 of the Cup final Thursday night.
They can win the first title in franchise history sooner than some thought.
“Right from the start, our will to win this one showed,” said the Panthers’ left-wing Sam Bennett. “All four lines, our goalie all battling their butt off, it is nice to see the effort.”
Panthers scored three goals in 6:19.
The Florida Panthers are now within two victories of winning the Stanley Cup
The Oilers committed turnovers, and the Panthers again prevented Connor McDavid from scoring a goal. A late rally got the Oilers within one but fell short, as the Panthers leaned on Bobrovsky, who made a highlight-reel stop on Ryan McLeod in the final minutes to preserve the victory.
“It is three nothing, that is the only frustration,” McDavid said. “It doesn’t matter how the games went. All that matters is the result.”
The last year a team based in Canada won the Stanley Cup was Montreal in 1993, months before the Panthers’ inaugural season. Until this series, they had gone 1-8 in the final.
“There is frustration that we are down,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “There is a difference between frustration and quitting. There is no quit; there is a belief we can do this.”
The Oilers are 0-5 all-time in a best-of-seven series when trailing 3-0, and they were swept in all of them.
The Panthers have outscored the Oilers by seven goals entering the weekend, which is tied for the fourth-largest goal differential through three games of a Stanley Cup Final over the last 40 years.
The Panthers appeared to be a team that had been here before and had taken control of this series. They continue not to get rattled even when things don’t go their way. When faced with adversity, they stick to the plan. Their all-stars have been playing like superstars. Barkov was all around again, highly impactful on both sides of the puck. Bobrovsky has been the star in every game; they are begging to etch his name on the Conn Smyth Trophy. He is the backbone of the Panthers.
Teams down 3-0 in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final have a 1-27 series record. (The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings.)
The Oilers will need a full 60 minutes every single game. There were so many defensive lapses in this Cup final, especially when playing the best defensive team in the NHL. If you get three goals on Bobrovsky, you should win the game. Their defense cost them the game. It will take a considerable buy-in for them to come back and win four in a row.
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