EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid was held without a point, so Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers’ other top players stepped up to lead them to a Stanley Cup victory.
Draisaitl made his first major impact in the Finals by setting up Warren Foegele’s opening goal, Adam Heinrich and Zach Hyman scored in the second period and the Oilers defeated the Florida Panthers 5-1 in Game 6 on Friday night to advance to Game 7 .
“Ultimately, we play to win and this is going to be the toughest game for us,” Draisaitl said. “We have to bring our game back.”
They are the third team to tie the series in the Finals after going down 3–0, and the first since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. The Oilers have a chance to take on the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night in Sunrise, Florida. The only NHL teams to overcome that deficit to win the Stanley Cup.
“There was an unshakable belief,” Hyman said. “No matter what happened throughout the year, we always believed we could go on. No matter how dire the circumstances were, we felt we had a chance. It was a long season facing adversity that “Prepared us. The next one will be the hardest. It feels incredible to get a chance to win now.”
According to ESPN Stats & Information Research, after trailing 3–0 in the series, the Oilers have scored more than five goals in three straight games, the longest streak in the Stanley Cup Finals since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 .
The opportunity to make hockey history and end Canada’s three-decade-long Cup drought only exists after the heroics of McDavid, who took the Oilers from the brink of belief with four points in Games 4 and 5. It was the first time in his nine-year career that he won a game in which he had no points or no shots on net.
Draisaitl, his longtime teammate from Germany who is also the league MVP and considered one of the best players in the world, provided a spark in Game 5 after being largely ineffective against the Panthers.
“He’s a horse,” defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “He always shows up in the biggest moments. You look at all his playoff performances, he’s one of the best ever to do it.”
Draisaitl got the puck at center ice, skated around and through Florida’s defenders and placed the puck on the tape of Foegele’s stick for a tap-in, which Sergei Bobrovsky had almost no chance to stop. Of course, this didn’t stop the excited sellout crowd of over 18,000 from jokingly shouting, “Ser-gei! Ser-gei!”
The goalie everyone calls “Bob” can hardly be blamed, however, as mistakes in front of him also contributed to a 2-on-1 rush that ended with a 2-on by Henrique on a precise pass to Mattias. Ended with defeating Bobrovsky in a -1 rush. Janmark. The Panthers looked tight and timid against their goaltender and a stark contrast to the Giants, who reached the finals for the second consecutive year and won the first three games to be on the cusp of the first title in franchise history.
“We’ve still got a game to play,” Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. “We were prepared to play a seven-match series from the beginning, and now nothing has changed. We came in three games in and they played three good games. Now it’s up to us to win at home.”
Florida had only six shots on net midway through the game and finished with 21. Continuing his trend of being there when the Oilers needed him most, goaltender Stuart Skinner made a timely save to stop the Panthers, giving Alexander Barkov just one goal short. 90 seconds into the third period.
“He’s been lights-out when we needed him,” Janmark said of Skinner.
The first time Barkov fouled Henriques just 10 seconds after scoring, the goal came off the board when Edmonton coach Chris Knoblauch successfully challenged for offside. A lengthy review found that Sam Reinhart entered the offensive zone perhaps an inch or less before the puck, which was announced after the fans began to roar.
“I actually didn’t think it was that close,” Knoblauch said. “In my mind, it was definitely offside.”
He wasn’t the loudest voice in Rogers Place, and there were a lot of candidates for that distinction. The decibel meter shown on the video screen reached 113.8 when the Oilers took the ice to the tune of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”.
It may have reached that noise level when Ryan McLeod and Nurse scored empty-netters in the final minutes, prompting chants of “We want the Cup!” Slogans echoed. “We want the cup!” And a wild celebration at the viewing party outside.
That was the fever of a city that was awash in a sea of blue and orange just hours before the puck dropped. Friday may also be a holiday in Edmonton, home to nearly a million people now fully capable of dreaming of adding another white championship banner to the Oilers’ rafters — and doing it in the most improbable way possible.
“We’re excited to continue our season,” McDavid said. “That’s what it’s all about. One game at a time, one day at a time. Looking forward to the next one.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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