Edmonton Oilers Force Historic Game 7 In NHL’s 2024 Stanley Cup Final

The comeback is full.

On Friday night time, the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 to even the 2024 Stanley Cup Closing at 3-3.

The sequence will shift again to Florida for the winner-take-all Recreation 7 on Monday, the place the Oilers can have an opportunity to grow to be simply the second crew in NHL historical past to rebound from an 0-3 deficit to win the Stanley Cup.

In 1942, the Toronto Maple Leafs got here again to beat the Detroit Pink Wings. In a rematch three years later, Toronto acquired the 3-0 lead earlier than Detroit replied with three wins, however the Maple Leafs prevailed with a 2-1 win in Recreation 7.

The Oilers are actually the primary crew since these 1945 Pink Wings to erase a 3-0 deficit within the Stanley Cup Closing. Monday night time, they’ll look to make much more historical past.

A win would additionally make Edmonton the primary Canadian crew to win the NHL’s championship for the reason that 1993 Montreal Canadiens — providing hope to the enterprise operations groups with the opposite six squads north of the border that obtain most of their income in Canadian funds, however pay participant salaries and plenty of different bills in U.S. {dollars}.

The ultimate marks the third-straight playoff sequence the place Edmonton has come again to win after falling behind within the pitch depend, so to talk. The Oilers have been additionally down 3-2 and going through elimination towards the Vancouver Canucks in Spherical 2, then had a 2-1 deficit towards the Dallas Stars earlier than flipping a swap and profitable three-straight video games to advance.

It’s a shocking present of resilience that’s constructed into the DNA of this squad, which was tied for final place in your entire NHL with a report of 2-9-1 on Nov. 10, two days earlier than first-time NHL head coach Kris Knoblauch changed Jay Woodcroft behind the bench.

The Oilers’ comeback has been led by their captain, Connor McDavid. Now in his ninth season, the 27-year-old three-time league MVP posted back-to-back four-point video games to ignite Edmonton’s comeback with an 8-1 win on residence ice in Recreation 4 and a 5-3 win in South Florida on Tuesday.

By the tip of Recreation 5, McDavid was as much as 34 assists and 42 factors in 23 playoff video games. He now holds the all-time report for assists in a single playoff 12 months after surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s previous report of 31 in Recreation 4. And McDavid is now fourth all-time in playoff factors behind Gretzky (47 pts, 1985), Mario Lemieux (44 pts, 1991) and Gretzky once more (43 pts, 1988).

Friday night time, his offense wasn’t wanted: his teammates carried the torch. Leon Draisaitl fed Warren Foegele for his third of the playoffs to open the scoring at 7:27 of the primary interval. Veteran checking middle Adam Henrique, a trade-deadline acquisition, picked up his fourth of the playoffs early within the second. And later within the center body, Zach Hyman scored his league-leading sixteenth of the playoffs when he tucked a breakaway likelihood underneath Sergei Bobrovsky’s arm to ship Rogers Place into utter bedlam.

Within the third, the Panthers made a push, controlling over 95 % of the anticipated objectives within the interval based on Pure Stat Trick.

At 1:28, captain Aleksander Barkov scored his eighth purpose of the playoffs, tying him with Matthew Tkachuk for his crew’s factors lead at 22. However Florida nonetheless managed simply eight pictures on purpose within the ultimate body, and 21 within the sport. Ryan McLeod iced it for Edmonton with an empty-netter with 3:15 left to play, and Darnell Nurse added one other insurance coverage tally 12 seconds later.

Regardless of McDavid’s stratospheric stats, the Oilers’ playoff success has been constructed from a basis of strong crew play and good protection, together with a record-setting penalty kill.

The Oilers have allowed only one purpose whereas shorthanded within the ultimate, whereas scoring two themselves.

With one sport to go, Edmonton is now 64-for-68 whereas a person quick by means of the playoffs, successful fee of 94.1 % that tops the 2000 New Jersey Devils (62-for-67, 92.5 %) for the very best of all time for the reason that NHL began to maintain penalty-killing statistics in 1977-78, for a crew that has gone previous the second spherical.

For the second, all of the momentum is on the Oilers’ aspect. However the Panthers do have the benefit of being again on residence ice for Recreation 7. And in a one-game winner-take-all affair, something can occur.

A win for the Panthers would even be historic — the primary within the 30-year historical past of their franchise. And after spending most of their years mired within the depths of the NHL standings and taking part in in entrance of hundreds of empty seats, the Panthers have made large strides towards success each on and off the ice since proprietor Vincent Viola purchased the crew in 2013.

On the ice, the crew has levelled up since Invoice Zito took the reins as normal supervisor beginning in 2020.

In 2022, the Panthers received the Presidents’ Trophy because the NHL’s finest regular-season crew, then adopted up with their first playoff-series win since 1996. Now, they’ve gone to the Stanley Cup Closing in back-to-back years.

The Panthers reached the 2024 ultimate in dominant style towards three robust opponents. They began with a five-game first-round win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, and adopted up with six-game wins over the Boston Bruins and the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers.

Monday night time will probably be Florida’s first Recreation 7 for the reason that first spherical of the 2023 playoffs, after they erased a 3-1 deficit towards the Boston Bruins with Carter Verhaeghe’s time beyond regulation tally to ship them on their run to the ultimate.