Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid has a shot blocked by Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky during Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final, in Sunrise, Fla., on June 10.Jim Rassol/Reuters
The Oilers head home on Tuesday in a precarious position.
A 4-1 loss to the Panthers on Monday left them in a 0-2 hole in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup final series. They fairly well got manhandled in this one and now Florida is just two wins away from capturing its first Stanley Cup in its 31 years as an NHL franchise.
Historically speaking, teams that go up 2-0 in the final have won 49 of 54 series.
Each team will fly six hours nonstop from Fort Lauderdale to northern Alberta on Tuesday. The 4,089 kilometres between Sunrise, Fla., and Edmonton is the longest distance between opposing cities in Stanley Cup history.
Games 3 and 4 will be played at Rogers Place on Thursday and Saturday.
Evan Rodrigues scored twice for the Panthers and Niko Mikkola and Aaron Ekblad had the others, the latter an empty netter. Mattias Ekholm gave Edmonton a 1-0 lead in the first period but after that it ran up against another superb performance by goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who has now turned away 49 of 50 shots in the first two games.
“They are a great team,” Connor McDavid, the Oilers’ captain, said afterward. “They defend very well and they have a great goalie. They are doing a lot of good things. They make it tough for sure.
“We can be better. I think they went up a level and we didn’t match it.”
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Rodrigues got the winner for Florida when he snapped a shot over Stuart Skinner from 37 feet out with 16:49 to go in the third period. That ended a streak of 34 straight penalty kills by the Oilers dating back to Game 3 of the second round versus Vancouver.
Skinner certainly was not bad but he was outplayed by Bobrovsky, who has given up two goals or fewer in 12 of the last 13 games. Skinner stopped 25 of 28 shots; Bobrovsky turned back 18 of 19.
Mikkola had a goal in the second and Ekblad found an empty net late in the third. Soon after, the largely partisan crowd inside Amerant Bank Arena began to chant, “We want the Cup.”
In Game 1, Florida was held to its fewest shots on goal (18) during the 2024 playoffs. This time it was Edmonton that found it difficult to get pucks to the net. When it did, Bobrovsky turned them away or they hit – three times – a post or the crossbar.
The Oilers did not register their first shot until 8:43 remaining in the first period but it was a good one.
With the teams playing 4-on-4, defenceman Ekholm fired a wrist shot that squirted through Bobrevsky’s legs. The goal came with an assist from McDavid. Earlier, Edmonton’s Warren Foegele had been assessed a five-minute major and ejected for kneeing Eetu Luostarinen, but that infraction was negated by a penalty on the Panthers.
The call against Foegele may be enough to warrant supplemental discipline, as may a later elbowing infraction by Leon Draisaitl on Panthers star Aleksander Barkov.
The first 20 minutes ended with Florida holding a 9-4 shot advantage. The Oilers killed off two penalties to bring them to 32 in a row. About eight minutes into the contest, Edmonton defenceman Darnell Nurse went to the locker room with an apparent hip injury. He returned briefly and finished with 4 minutes 30 seconds of ice time.
Kris Knoblauch, the Oilers coach, said afterward that Nurse was still being examined but he believes he will be available for Game 3.
Florida began the second period on a power play called late in the first but failed to score. That was the Oilers’ 33rd straight kill.
The Panthers then tied it in the second at 1-1. Mikkola beat Skinner from a long way out with 9:34 remaining. It was the Finn’s second goal in 19 postseason games.
Edmonton came close to retaking the lead, but a wrist shot by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins hit the crossbar with four minutes to go before the second intermission. After 40 minutes, Florida had 22 shots and the Oilers had just seven.
Knoblauch made one significant change to his lineup when he scratched veteran defenceman Cody Ceci and replaced him with Vincent Desharnais.
Ceci played in 79 regular-season games and all 19 previous playoff games and has never been a healthy scratch in three seasons with the Oilers. The 30-year-old was on the ice on Saturday when the Panthers scored two goals in a 3-0 victory.
Desharnais sat out the four previous games.
“We have great depth,” McDavid said. “Kris and the coaching staff have made different decisions here along the way and everyone has done a great job of stepping in and contributing.
“It is unfortunate when guys don’t get to play some games but everyone is pulling the rope here. Everybody understands where we are at.”
McDavid has 17 points following a loss in these playoffs, among the highest totals in league history. The three-time winner of the Hart Trophy has not gone more than one game without getting at least one point in the postseason.
Bobrovsky allowed six goals in a Round 1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning but has stopped 49 of 50 shots by the Oilers.
McDavid and his teammates have made a habit of rebounding from a loss in the 2024 playoffs but could not do so on Monday. McDavid broke loose on a breakaway with 5:53 remaining that would have cut the margin to 3-2 at the time but Bobrovsky stymied him, and Edmonton’s task keeps getting taller.
The Oilers are hoping that home ice will help them rebound.
“It is exciting,” McDavid said. “We have another opportunity to come together and dig our way out. It is supposed to be hard. I’m excited to see what our group is made of. I am excited to see us fight through adversity.
“We are good with our backs against the wall.”