Panthers vs. Oilers Stanley Cup Final changes rinks. And, probably, little else

Miami Herald

4 hours ago

While The Talking Heads sang, 'Home...is where I want to be' and the TV sports talking heads will make 'home-ice advantage' a conversation topic, Games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Final in Amerant Bank Arena could look very much like the two overtime games in Edmonton that started this rematch.
Expect neither team to alter style. Sunrise's ice isn't Edmonton's, known for decades as the NHL's best, but it isn't a swamp. And, the biggest home-rink advantage is personnel deployment.
Still, you want to strut with Stanley, you can't be a mouse in your house. Since the NHL came out of the 2005 lockout and excluding the 2020 playoffs that were confined to Edmonton's Rogers Place, only one team won the Cup with a losing record at home in the Final: 2018-19 St. Louis, which lost two of three at home to the Bruins, but won Games 2, 5 and 7 in Boston.
Of the other 17 Cup Finals in that time span, none of the winners lost more than one home game.
READ MORE: After excelling on road all playoffs, it's time for Panthers to produce at home in Cup Final
That's despite, in these times of uniformity among NHL rinks, the lone by-law advantage for home teams is personnel deployment. As the home team in Games 3 and 4, the Panthers get to make any player changes last before face-offs (unless they iced the puck, which means the players on the ice have to stay there).
So, when Edmonton puts out center Connor McDavid, right wing Leon Draisaitl and Whatever Left Wing Fits At The Moment, the Panthers have an easier time getting the forward line and/or defense pair they want on the ice.
'The advantage is marginal,' Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. 'A lot of it happens probably just on running your bench in terms of minutes that you put on people when you're on the road and you get a D zone draw, especially when you have the players at the top end like Edmonton has. You run your top end of your bench harder than you will at home.'
Evidence of that: ice times going into Friday's second overtime. Despite 80 minutes of hockey down, the Panthers had two forwards, center Jesper Boqvist and Jonah Gadjovich, under 10 minutes of ice time for the game. Edmonton, which rolled four lines more successfully, had no such players.
If a fast, physical series also becomes a long series, that matters.
'Florida does like their line matchups,' Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. 'So, it'll be difficult for us to get away from those. But, we had the opportunity to play four lines, which allows us to shake those matchups a bit.'
READ MORE: Panthers' top line hasn't scored yet in Stanley Cup Final. Is it a cause for concern?
They are — and will remain — who you think they are
Nobody knows more about making high-skill plays on various ice surfaces than NHL all-time leading scorer Wayne Gretzky, whose playoff history includes games on the NHL's smoothest, swiftest track in Edmonton and games in Los Angeles and Miami Arena.
During TNT's postgame wrapup of Game 2, Gretzky opined that in Sunrise, the Oilers should play a more direct game to account for June ice that can give pucks minds of their own on passes and slick stickhandling moves. Perhaps the guy with more assists in NHL history than anyone else has total points is right.
But, evidence from last year's Cup Final says the Oilers got used to working on whatever quality ice is underfoot.
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky had to steal Game 1 for the Panthers, stopping all 32 Edmonton shots (the Panthers had only 18). In Game 5, McDavid had two goals and two assists, including an all-time highlight on which he slithered among three Panthers to set up Corey Perry. Edmonton's lone goal in Game 7 came off a stretch pass breakaway.
'You're not going to change how your team's playing,' Knoblauch said. 'You make little adjustments. But your identity is your identity throughout the playoffs.'
The Panthers play the same smart, pounding, opponent-irritating way at home and on the road, better at the latter recently.
Two of their last three home games, they got zeroed by Toronto in Game 6 and Carolina in Game 4, each time with a chance to end the series. Meanwhile, their last seven road games, the Panthers have scored, counting backwards, five; three; five; five; five; six; and six. That's exactly five goals per game.
Home playoff goals by this year's leading Panthers playoff goal scorer, center Sam Bennett? One or one more than Ms. Valdes-Valle, your elementary school Spanish teacher. But, he's set an NHL record with 12 goals on the road.