Connor McDavid scored two goals and added two assists and the Edmonton Oilers staved off elimination again with a 5-3 win over the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Panthers got off to a pretty good start, but Stuart Skinner made a solid save on Sam Reinhart and an even better one on Aaron Ekblad to keep the game scoreless.
For the second straight game, disaster struck on Florida’s malfunctioning power play. Brandon Montour tried to go point-to-point to Aleksander Barkov, but his ill-advised pass was broken up by Connor Brown, who sped down the ice and deposited the puck into the back of the net off Sergei Bobrovsky’s skate blade to give the Oilers the lead at 5:30, sucking a lot of the air out of the building.
Edmonton started the second period with a man-advantage, thanks to a interference call on Niko Mikkola, and cashed in with two seconds left on the power play when McDavid dropped back to Evan Bouchard and he cranked a shot in off Zach Hyman’s knee pad. It was Hyman’s first goal of the series.
McDavid would make it 3-0 for the visitors at the 5-minute mark when he found a little opening between Bobrovsky’s pad and the near post with a sharp-angle shot from down low. Good hustle by primary assister Warren Foegele, who won the puck from Gustav Forsling before handing off to McDavid. Bouchard was credited with the secondary helper.
The Panthers would get on the board 1:53 later to stop the bleeding. Evan Rodrigues bumped Dylan Holloway along the left boards and then swept the puck ahead to Matthew Tkachuk, who was behind the Edmonton defense. Tkachuk beat Skinner with a perfectly placed wrist in the top corner of the net for his first of the Final.
A hooking call on Kyle Okposo set the stage for some more McDavid magic. McDavid gathered steam, starting in own end before beating Eetu Luostarinen at the Florida blue line and then splitting Dmitry Kulikov and Mikkola before dishing off to Corey Perry, who jammed the puck over Bobrovsky at 11:54. Bouchard picked up his third assist of the night on Perry’s first of the playoffs.
After setting up Tkachuk’s goal, Rodrigues would get one of his own 14 seconds later to pull the Cats back within two. From the goal line, Sam Bennett fed Montour in the high slot and Rodrigues was able to get the rebound to go after Skinner made a pad save on the initial shot.
Florida pressured hard the rest of the period, finishing with 16 shots in the frame, but the Oilers got to the dressing room with a two-goal lead.
The Panthers would keep coming and halve the deficit 4:04 into the third. Oliver Ekman-Larsson sent the puck behind the net to Tkachuk, and then moved down into space and wired a shot over Skinner’s left arm when Tkachuk fed him in the top of the left circle.
To their credit, Edmonton kept its composure the rest of the way. Skinner made a nice blocker save on Ekblad, and Bennett missed one wide, but I don’t remember the Cats getting much in the way of high-quality chances.
Tkachuk would make a heroic play to keep the puck from crossing the goal line into the empty net before McDavid collected the loose puck and fired it in to end it. Ekman-Larsson could’ve defended McDavid, but pulled up. I’m assuming he thought the puck had crossed the line.
A special performance (again) from McDavid coupled with a special teams disaster for the Panthers, who gave up two power-play goals and another shorthanded marker, means we are heading back to Rogers Place for Game 6. Florida gave a much better effort than they did in Game 4, but McDavid is going off, Skinner is outplaying Bobrovsky and the Cats are the now the ones shooting themselves in the foot and doing the chasing.
Stanley Stuff
- With eight points in the last two games Connor McDavid is now up to 42 points in the playoffs, which is the fourth most in a single postseason all-time. He joins Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux as the only players to hit 40 points in the a playoff season. Yikes!
- The Panthers became the first team in NHL history to allow a shorthanded to open the scoring in back-to-back Stanley Cup Final games.
- Evan Rodrigues had a goal and an assist and leads the Panthers with four goals and six points against the Oilers.
- Stuart Skinner, who finished with 29 stops, got the best of Sergei Bobrovsky again. Bobrovsky looked a bit shaky at times and ended the night with 19 stops.
- Matthew Tkachuk goal and an assist gave him his eighth multipoint game of the playoffs, matching Aleksander Barkov’s franchise record
- Barkov had two shots, three blocks and a hit, and was strong in the dot (10 of 14), but finished the game with a -2 rating.