Game 6: Edmonton leads 5-1 with time winding down in 3rd
Posted June 21, 2024 6:48 pm.
Last Updated June 21, 2024 8:52 pm.
Facing elimination for the third time in the Stanley Cup final, the Edmonton Oilers got off to a good start in Game 6 in front of their home crowd on Friday.
A Panthers turnover in the neutral zone led to Leon Draisaitl racing down the ice. He found Warren Foegele with a perfectly weighted saucer pass, and the winger lifted the puck past Sergei Bobrovsky at 7:27.
Edmonton, which outshot Florida 11-2 in the first period, is 12-5 this postseason when scoring first.
Wanting to outdo Draisaitl’s perfect saucer, Mattias Janmark pulled off one of his own just 46 seconds into the second period, finding Adam Henrique on a 2-on-1 on a bad change by Florida.
It looked like the Panthers got one back 10 seconds later when Aleksander Barkov beat Stuart Skinner, but the call on the ice was overturned for offside — by the smallest of margins — after an Edmonton challenge.
Florida ramped up the pressure after that disallowed goal but Skinner was up to the challenge, stopping all 11 pucks fired his way in the middle frame.
With time winding down in the second, a blocked shot by Evan Bouchard saw the puck pop out of Edmonton’s zone toward empty ice. A streaking Zach Hyman jumped on the loose puck on a breakaway, evaded the stick of a backchecking Gustav Forsling, and went forehand-backhand on Bobrovsky’s blocker side for the 3-0 Oilers lead.
The Panthers refused to go down quietly. Barkov made things interesting with a goal 88 seconds into the third period, coming across the net as Oilers players fell to the ice around him, going around Skinner to score his eighth of the playoffs.
A big penalty kill by the Oilers with Derek Ryan in the box for high sticking kept Florida within two goals. Edmonton failed to score on a power play of its own minutes later.
The Oilers scored back-to-back empty-net goals with three minutes left on the clock.
The Oilers are hoping to become the fifth NHL team to ever come back from an 0-3 deficit to win a series, and the first to do so in the final since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs. They are also looking to end Canada’s 30-year Stanley Cup drought.
