Vladimir Tarasenko #10 of the Florida Panthers shoots the puck against Mattias Janmark #13 of the Edmonton Oilers during the third period in Game One of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena on June 8, 2024 in Sunrise, Florida.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Back in the Stanley Cup final for the first time in 18 years, the Oilers fell to the Florida Panthers 3-0 on Saturday in the opening game of the best-of-seven series for hockey supremacy.
Carter Verhaeghe and Evan Rodrigues scored for the Panthers early, Eetu Luostarinen had an empty-netter late and Sergei Bobrovsky was brilliant in the net for Florida, which is now three victories away from winning its first Stanley Cup. The Panthers have lost in the final twice, including last year to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Game 2 will be played on Florida’s home ice again on Monday at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, west of Fort Lauderdale. The series will shift to Edmonton for Games 3 and 4 on Thursday and Saturday.
Game 1 has been won by the home team in nine of the last 11 years. Historically speaking, the team that has won Game 1 has gone on to capture the Stanley Cup 76 per cent of the time.
Edmonton has won five cups but none since 1990. The Oilers were 3-10-1 and last in the NHL early in the regular season but from then on had the league’s best record and eliminated the Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars in the first three rounds.
They outshot the Panthers 32-17 and played well overall but could not solve Bobrovsky, who has twice won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender and is nominated again this year.
“He made some spectacular saves,” Stuart Skinner, Bobrosvky’s counterpart in Edmonton’s net, said. “It’s hard to beat him. He is an incredible goalie.”
Defensive lapses led to Florida’s first two goals and Skinner was not at fault. He finished with 15 saves.
The Oilers have the NHL’s best power play and had three chances but failed to cash in. The Panthers went 0-for-2. Edmonton has now killed off 30 penalties in a row dating back to the third game of the second round versus Vancouver.
“We didn’t give up too much,” said Connor McDavid, Edmonton’s captain and superstar centre. “What we did give up was dangerous, though. There was a lot to like. We got a ton of chances but didn’t have a lot of puck luck.”
This is the first opportunity for McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers’ stars, to compete for the Stanley Cup, and also the first chance for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the team’s longest-serving player at 13 years.
“It took us a while to get here, but we were young kids at the start and the weight of the world was on our shoulders,” Draisaitl, who has played with the Oilers for 10 years, said early in the day. This is McDavid’s nine season. “We weren’t ready for that yet.
“This has been a long time coming for us. It’s the biggest stage you can play on in all of hockey. Every kid dreams about this.”
The Panthers, who joined the league as an expansion franchise in 1993, were looking forward to a chance at redemption after their defeat in 2023.
“You can’t use the word excitement enough,” Rodrigues, a forward for Florida, said following the morning skate. “You almost wish it was an afternoon game so you could just wake up and start getting after it.”
The Oilers outshot the Panthers 14-4 in the first period but trailed 1-0 when it concluded. Verhaeghe scored on a short wrist shot four minutes in on a 3-on-2 on Florida’s first attempt of the contest. The only reason Edmonton didn’t hold lead after 20 minutes was because of the superb play of Bobrovsky.
He stopped McDavid after a sleight-of-hand move in front of the net, stopped Adam Henrique on a breakaway, did a belly flop to stymie McDavid a second time on a power play, and made a lunging glove save on a slap shot by Mattias Ekholm.
“Bobby” chants filled the Panthers’ raucous home rink where the cheapest nosebleed seats for Game 1 were selling for around US$280 on a third-party ticket site and seats at centre ice for more than US$3,000. Parking at the arena was US$75.
This is the third time Paul Maurice, the Panthers coach, has taken a team to the finals after Carolina in 2002 and Florida last year. In 26 years he has been behind an NHL team’s bench for 1,955 games in the regular and post-seasons.
“Every coach is different, and it seems to me, as you age, you get a different perspective on life and what’s important and valuable,” Maurice said at the Stanley Cup media day on Friday. “I’m 30 years into this thing and I wouldn’t mind winning one.”
By comparison, Edmonton’s Kris Knoblauch has coached 88 games in the NHL. He took over after Jay Woodcroft was fired in November, taking the helm with the club still reeling.
“I thought overall that we played a pretty good game,” Knoblauch said. “We had a good share of opportunities to score and they didn’t go in. There were a lot of things I liked but we have to play better.”
Likely headed for the Hall of Fame, Bobrovsky is 13-5 in the 2023-24 playoffs and has surrendered two or fewer goals in 11 of his last 12 outings.
Although he briefly lost the net to backup Calvin Pickard during the second round, Skinner has settled back in for the Oilers. Owning an 11-6 record in the playoffs, the 25-year-old went 4-2 and had a .922 save percentage in the Western Conference final.
The Panthers finished first in the Atlantic Division and defeated Tampa Bay in the first round, Boston in the second and the New York Rangers in the third. The Rangers had the league’s best record during the regular season.
The Oilers applied heavy pressure but could not get past Bobrovsky.
“The Panthers are exactly what they look like on TV,” McDavid said. “They play hard and they are fast.”
With the win, the Panthers are one step closer to their first Stanley Cup title.
“It was tough to lose last year, but I feel that’s where the real journey started,” Anton Lundell, Florida’s 22-year-old centre, said earlier. “We’re really excited to write a new story now.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the Florida Panthers defeated the Boston Bruins in the first round of the NHL playoffs and Tampa Bay in the second round. In fact, the Panthers defeated Tampa Bay in the first round and Boston in the second.