Some things to worry about before the Edmonton Oilers play Game 6
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Letting the Oilers come back from 3-0 down on the road in Game 4 should have broken the Panthers. It should have signalled a shift in momentum. Playoff defeats don't get more devastating than that. Instead, it's starting to look like that was Edmonton's last gasp, a once-in-a-century comeback sandwiched in between 6-1 and 5-2 losses.
It doesn't look good.
But the Oilers have 14 wins in the playoffs, eight of which have been comebacks. It's a team that rebounded from 0-2 down in the Los Angeles series and became the first road team in 106 years to win a Stanley Cup Final game after trailing 3-0.
You're out of your mind if you don't think they can't come back and win it all.
Playing a stinker, giving everyone very good reason to believe they're done, and then coming back to silence the doubters is what they do.
Whether they can do it against one of the best teams of the last 30 years is the question.
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Globe and Mail
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Oilers up against the clock to find a winning mix against Panthers in Stanley Cup final
The Edmonton Oilers were the favourites to win the Stanley Cup before the season began but now find themselves on the brink of elimination from the final for the second straight year. After a defeat on Saturday, the Oilers trail the Florida Panthers 3-2 in the best-of-seven and now must win in Sunrise, Fla., on Tuesday to stay alive. They must then do it again on Friday to clinch their first NHL championship in 35 years. It has been a great and odd final series where the opponents have alternated victories. Neither has been able to maintain momentum but now the Panthers are just one victory shy of capturing the Stanley Cup for the second straight year. Florida beat Edmonton in seven games a year ago and at present would seem to hold the upper hand. The Oilers have fallen short in two critical areas that they will have to address to have a chance. The issues are related as well. The first is being outplayed at the beginning of games. They have been outscored 11-4 overall in the first period and 7-0 over the last three contests. 'We have come out flat for most of the series,' Mattias Ekholm, Edmonton's veteran defenceman, said after Saturday's 5-2 loss. 'We have to find a way to be better at that. 'We have to make sure we bear down in games, and it hasn't happened for us. We need to go to Florida and win a game and flip that.' Perhaps Ekholm is being hard on himself and his teammates in so far as three of the five games have gone to overtime. But at this time of year there should be no shortage of desperation. There is no reason a team should not be ready to go at the opening puck drop. Cathal Kelly: Any team can win the Stanley Cup – but only the Panthers truly want to Opinion: Stanley Cup pursuit reignites debate about taxes on player salaries The other crucial issue is that the Oilers' goaltending has been erratic. Stuart Skinner has been excellent, but also pulled from the net twice. Calvin Pickard came on in relief on Thursday and was splendid in an overtime victory where Edmonton fell into a 3-0 hole in the first period. As such he was given the starting nod on Saturday but allowed four goals on 18 shots. Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch cast no blame his way, but it should be pointed out that Sergei Bobrovsky, the Panthers' goalie, has been just OK so far. Knoblauch would not say who would start Game 6 during a media availability early Sunday morning, before the team boarded its charter flight for Fort Lauderdale. 'It's not an easy decision,' Knoblauch said of who would be put in the net while facing elimination. 'We have two goalies that have shown they can play extremely well. We feel no matter who [we would] choose can win the game.' The bigger problem is that Edmonton has been collapsing early and its high-powered offence has turned into a popgun in the three losses. 'It would be nice to get some goal support,' Knoblauch said. 'It would be nice to have the lead and for our goalies to not be in a position where the pressure is on them and they have to make every single save to keep the game close or keep us ahead. 'We've had high-quality chances early. Capitalizing on them would be something good for us.' Neither of the team's superstars – Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl – spoke to journalists after Saturday's game or on Sunday morning. That certainly makes it seem like frustration is mounting. The Oilers took only two penalties in Game 5 but in previous outings have allowed the Panthers to have too many opportunities with a man advantage. 'We have to clean up that issue,' Knoblauch said. 'That has been a big story throughout the series.' There are things that need to be fixed for Edmonton to win. Time is running out.
Toronto Star
4 hours ago
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Toronto Sun
4 hours ago
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SIMMONS: Maurice no overnight sensation, but sensation nonetheless
Panthers coach finding his place amongst NHL greats with Florida 1 win away from 2nd straight Cup Get the latest from Steve Simmons straight to your inbox Head coach Paul Maurice of the Florida Panthers yells from the bench against the Edmonton Oilers during the second period in Game 5 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place on Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Edmonton, Alta. Photo by Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images Bill Zito did a lot of asking around before he hired Paul Maurice to coach the Florida Panthers. In fact, he decided to poll some of his former clients from the days when he was a player agent. He chose three players intentionally to ask a simple question: Who is the best coach you ever played for? One player was an NHL star. One player was an NHL also-ran. One player was mostly a minor-leaguer who had spent some time on NHL rosters. The three players were from different countries. And they all came up with the same answer: Maurice. 'To hear different perspectives on the same thing was fascinating,' said Zito, the highly accomplished general manager of the soon to be back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Panthers. 'It made it a lot easier for me to see the big picture. The players I ask were what I'd call complete hockey geeks, so you don't know what you're going to get from them. 'But I listened to them. I asked a lot of questions. And I think we have the best coach in the business, I really believe that.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Paul Maurice during his days as a freshman NHL coach with the Hartford Whalers. Photo by Mark van Manen / Postmedia Network Before he coached a game with the Florida Panthers, Maurice was more known for longevity and a sharp sense of humour than he was for success as an NHL coach. He had coached for two years in Hartford, with Carolina twice, Toronto for two years, Winnipeg for nine: An extraordinarily long run without really getting a sniff of the Stanley Cup, although he did make the final once with the Hurricanes. He has lost more NHL games than any other coach in history. He has also coached in more games than anyone not named Scotty Bowman in NHL history. But it wasn't until Zito's call, when Maurice wasn't sure where he was headed after parting ways with the Winnipeg Jets and didn't know if he wanted to coach any more. Then the pieces all came together and the Panthers hired him three summers ago — and the coach once known for hanging around a long time and doing the best news conferences in the game suddenly became a legend. 'I think he was a great coach before he got here,' said Zito. 'He had a lot of success.' But it's now three seasons with the Panthers, three trips to the Cup final, one win away from a second straight championship. How do you do better than that? Only one current NHL coach has won as many as three Stanley Cups and that's Joel Quenneville, who was coach of the Panthers before the NHL and his part in the Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault scandal forced him out of Florida. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Quenneville has three. Mike Sullivan and Jon Cooper have two. Maurice is about to join a rather exclusive club at a time when loyalists were hoping that Canada would return to a Stanley Cup celebration for the first time in 32 years. The Panthers are about as Canadian as you can get at the highest level of the NHL. Maurice is from Sault Ste. Marie. His lead assistants, Jamie Kompon and Sylvain Lefebvre, are from Thunder Bay and Quebec. The Conn Smythe favourites, Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett, are from Halifax and Holland Landing, just outside Toronto. Sam Reinhart is from Vancouver. Aaron Ekblad from Windsor. Evan Rodrigues and Carter Verhaeghe are from the Toronto area. Jonah Gadjovich is from Whitby, A.J. Greer is from Joliette, Que. That's a lot of Canadian content for a team that has Roberto Luongo in management, as well as Bryan McCabe and Rick Dudley, all of them prominent Canadian hockey players or voices. But the voices that matter most here belong to the general manager and the coach he hired. Zito says very little publicly. Maurice isn't paid by the word, although sometimes it seems that way. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Head coach Paul Maurice, right, of the Florida Panthers speaks with the media alongside GM Bill Zito prior to the start of the 2025 NHL Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on June 3, 2025, in Edmonton, Alta. Photo by Bruce Bennett / Getty Images When a GM and a coach are in sync the way Zito and Maurice are in sync — two men doing their jobs exceptionally well in a highly competitive industry — magic can happen. It happened when Bill Torrey worked with Al Arbour. It happened when Sam Pollock worked with Bowman. It happened when Quenneville coached for Stan Bowman in Chicago. It happened in Los Angeles with Dean Lombardi and Darryl Sutter and later in Tampa with Cooper and Julien BriseBois. Now the combo that matters most is Zito and Maurice. Maurice coaches. Zito supplies talent. This year he added Marchand and Seth Jones at the deadline. No one else came close to his roster alterations. Jones has been invaluable on the Florida defence. Marchand has been a machine for the Panthers up front. Maurice has done what Maurice does — insist on playing the game his way, hard and physical, determined yet intelligent. Maurice can start a game with his team forechecking heavily and then flip to a trap in the second period, then back to forecheck. The thing with the Panthers is you never know what you're getting. And unlike most coaches, Maurice isn't disliked by his players. He's appreciated. He's matured at the age of 58 from a guy who hung around to a budding legend. The players understand his journey and the love he has for the game and for them. And they play for him, maybe more than any team plays for any NHL coach. All it took was 27 years and too many lost seasons on too many teams going nowhere for Maurice to find his Hall of Fame kind of place. He is anything but an overnight sensation — but a sensation nonetheless. About to win another Stanley Cup. ssimmons@ X: @simmonssteve Read More Sports Toronto & GTA Canada Relationships Sunshine Girls
