Edmonton Oilers never expected to dominate here in Stanley Cup Final
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If winning the Stanley Cup was easy, everyone would be walking around with all sorts of bling on their fingers.
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But there is nothing easy about the NHL playoffs, especially this best-of-7 series between the last team standing in each conference.
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This is, after all, hockey's Holy Grail, which is routinely described as the hardest trophy to win in all of professional sports.
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The concept is straightforward enough. All you've got to do is come up with four wins faster than your opponent.
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Oh, but the games are played with one, maybe two days' rest in between. And did we mention the series comes after having to earn 12 wins across three previous rounds that have to feel every bit as gruelling at the time?
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It's a grind. And if your team's not up to the task, don't worry, you'll find out right away.
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That's what makes this particular Stanley Cup Final so intriguing, as a rematch of last year's championship round that went right down to the wire, with three straight wins by one team followed by three straight wins by the other, only being decided by one goal's worth of difference in Game 7.
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And after it took almost eight-and-a-half periods over the first two games to decide nothing, as the two teams entered Game 3 on Monday in Sunrise, Fla., with the series every bit as even at 1-1 as it was when it began, there is nothing to suggest it won't go the distance again this time around.
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The Oilers and Panthers are as evenly matched as you could hope the top two teams on the season would be. The only drawback to the whole thing is the result of Game 3 almost doesn't matter — not nearly as much as Game 4 on Thursday (6 p.m., CBC, Sportsnet) — because for every punch from one side, there has been a clear and decisive counterpunch from the other.
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And that goes for game to game, and within the game.
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'It's the Stanley Cup Finals,' said Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse. 'You're not going to walk through a Stanley Cup Final. You're not going to walk through a team at this point of the year.
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'The team we're playing against, it's their third final in a row and they're here for a reason. And for us, we know that we are very capable, when we are at the top of our game, of being the dominant team on the ice.'
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Like the Oilers did over the past two rounds, going 4-1 against both the Pacific Division-winning Vegas Golden Knights and a Dallas Stars squad that knocked off the Presidents' Cup-winning Winnipeg Jets.
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