EDMONTON, Alberta – Paul Maurice had seen enough after Sergei Bobrovsky allowed his fifth goal in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finaldeciding to remove the Florida Panthers’ goalie, which was the biggest reason the team is one win away from a championship.
Bobrovsky allowed five of 16 shots, and his coach felt it was time to give him a rest and bring in backup Anthony Stolarz five minutes into the second period. Stolarz allowed three more in the Panthers 8-1 defeat to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night, which sends the series back to Florida for Game 5.
“If you think you’re recovering, rarely does the goalie make a difference to you: there’s something that happens on the other side of the ice,” Maurice said. “He played a lot of hockey. My number on Bob is probably five (goals allowed) overall.
Bobrovsky stopped 82 of the 86 shots he faced in the first three games of the finals and is, along with captain Aleksander Barkov, one of the leading candidates for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He allowed more goals in 25 minutes of this one than in the rest of the series combined, leading to derisive taunts of “Sergei! Sergei! of the local fans.
“Everyone is human,” Oilers forward Zach Hyman said. “You have to keep going, you have to keep improving your appearance and eventually something will happen. Obviously, we looked good tonight and were able to beat him.”
Bobrovsky wasn’t at his best, but neither were the Panthers players in front of him. Mattias Janmark’s three-minute goal came on a 2-1 run, and there were plenty of other mistakes that contributed to giving Edmonton so many good looks that they cashed in.
It wasn’t great, ‘Bob’, but his teammates were quick to shift the blame away from Bobrovsky for landing the hook.
“He’s been unbelievable all year, all playoffs,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “It was another warning for everyone. We know he’s going to come back better than ever, and with that said, none of them were his fault. I still thought he made some unreal saves.”
Stolarz, who coincidentally was drafted with the 2012 second-round pick Philadelphia received for trading Bobrovsky more than a decade ago, made 16 saves in his NHL playoff debut.
“He was good,” Maurice said. “The guy watched a lot of hockey for a while. That’s what you need. He comes in and he’s going to fight hard. It was great for him to come in. Not a lot of positives here, guys, but ‘Bob’ got some rest, I’ll take that.
There is very little rest for the Panthers, who have another chance to close out the series and hoist the Stanley Cup in Game 5 at Sunrise on Tuesday night.
“There are a lot of things we can do much better,” Barkov said. “We probably got overwhelmed. we need not to give up. But obviously the game is over now. All we need to do is just recover and think about what’s next.”
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