These Florida Panthers look familiar. And they're two wins from another Stanley Cup after wearing down the Oilers
The Florida Panthers are halfway there. The Edmonton Oilers look halfway done.
The Panthers' big guns got the job done, from Brad Marchand's opening-minute goal to Aaron Ekblad's third-period power-play goal that chased Stuart Skinner from the Edmonton net.
Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues also scored in a penalty-filled, bench-depleting 6-1 win over the Oilers in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final Monday night.
'Emotions are high,' Marchand told Sportsnet after the game. 'Sometimes it's how the game goes.'
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The Panthers lead the best-of-seven final two games to one with Game 4 — and a chance to put a stranglehold on the series — set for Thursday, also at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla.
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'We've got to find a way to win,' Edmonton captain Connor McDavid said. 'The focus shifts right away to winning the game on Thursday. We came for a split, didn't get it tonight. Another opportunity Thursday.
'Game 4 is really big. You go back home 2-2, or down 3-1. It's a big swing game.'
The Oilers took their swings — quite literally — at the Panthers as their frustrations boiled over with the game getting out of hand. The referees issued five misconducts to Edmonton, three to Florida.
'When we get into garbage time, those things happen and I don't mind when those things happen,' McDavid said. 'It's what good teams do, fight your way out of the rink.'
The Panthers know not just how to win but how to beat down an opponent. They needed just five games to beat Tampa in the first round and Carolina in the Eastern Conference final. And though the Maple Leafs took them to seven games in the second round, Game 7 was a 6-1 shellacking. The Panthers find ways to get their opponents off their game.
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'We talked about it in the third,' Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said. 'If you have to take a punch, take a punch. If you have to take a cross-check, take a cross-check. Spear, slash in the face, whatever the case is, you've got to take it. We just played a really smart game.'
The Oilers took 21 penalties. After being the team that complained the first two games about uncalled goaltender interference on Skinner, they were the team that was called for it in Game 3 on Sergei Bobrovsky.
'Look at some of the calls,' said Oilers winger Evander Kane, who took three minors and a 10-minute misconduct. 'Some of them are frustrating. They seem to get away with it more than we do. It's tough to find the line.'
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Florida's win bodes well for the Panthers' chance at defending their championship. When a best-of-seven Stanley Cup final is tied 1-1, the winner of Game 3 holds an all-time series record of 23-7 (.767).
'We try to play the same way every game,' Marchand said. 'The biggest thing that we talk about is consistency throughout our game. Sometimes, games get a little bit of hand, but they're fun ones to be part of. '
Though Game 3 was the only one so far that didn't require overtime, it started an awful lot likes the first two games: a quick goal, this time 54 seconds in by Marchand, and plenty of penalties. Verhaeghe scored the only power-play goal of the period to put Florida up 2-0.
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Corey Perry scored with the man advantage early in the second, but the Panthers didn't let the Oilers come back. Reinhart scored just 1:20 after Perry gave the Oilers life. Then Bennett got his playoffs-leading 14th goal as Florida went up 4-1. The Panthers have outscored the Oilers 5-2 in the middle frames.
The Oilers seemed well out of sorts, unable to get anything meaningful going against the defending champs.
'It wasn't our best at all,' McDavid said. 'I don't think our best has shown up, all series long, but it's coming.'
The Oilers would be better off forgetting this game happened. They face big questions about a power play that has gone cold and about their goaltending. Calvin Pickard put in a solid third period after replacing Skinner.
The Oilers took far too many penalties 200 feet from their net, they were caught retaliating too much, and they showed the kind of frustration more indicative of a young team, not the league's oldest team
'It was penalty chaos tonight,' Skinner said. 'I don't know what to make of it. There's a lot of emotions that are going into this. We're trying to win a Cup. They're trying to win a Cup. So there's fight.
'Some guys are flaking, going down, trying to cause penalties. The other teams don't like that. So then it's just going to be a battle. Obviously, we're not going to go down without a fight.'
Cup notes
Paul Maurice became the third head coach in NHL history to win 1,000 games in the regular season and playoffs, joining Scotty Bowman (1,467) and Joel Quenneville (1,090) … Marchand, 37 old, became the oldest player to score in the first three games of a Stanley Cup final, besting the previous mark held by 35-year-old Frank Mahovlich (in 1973 with Montreal) … Perry became the third player in NHL history age 40 or older to score multiple goals in the final … Bennett extended his goal streak to four games to establish a new franchise record for the longest in the post-season.
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