The Oilers beat the Panthers 5-1 to force Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final

EDMONTON, Alberta – Connor McDavid was left without a point, so Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers’ other key players stepped up to put them one win away. the Stanley Cup.

Draisaitl made his first big impact in the finals by setting up Warren Foegele’s early goal, Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman scored in the second period and the Oilers forced a Game 7 by defeating the Florida Panthers 5-1 in Game 6 on Friday night. fair.

“At the end of the day, we play to win and this will be the toughest game for us,” Draisaitl said. “We have to bring our game again.”

They are the first team to tie the final after going down 3-0 in the series since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. The Oilers have the chance Monday night at Sunrise to join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs as the only NHL teams to come all the way back from that deficit to hoist the Stanley Cup.

“There was an unshakable belief,” Hyman said. “No matter what happened throughout the year, we always believed we could survive. No matter how dire the circumstances, we think we have a chance. It was a long season facing adversity that prepared us. The next one will be the hardest. It’s unbelievable to do that in front of that crowd. To have a chance to win now, this is our first opportunity to win.”

The opportunity to make hockey history and end the three-decade Canada Cup drought only exists after McDavid’s heroism with four points each in Games 4 and 5 to push the Oilers to the brink of belief. This was the first time in his nine-year career that they won a game in which he neither scored a point nor shot into the net.

Draisaitl, his longtime German running mate who was also a league MVP and considered one of the best players in the world, lit the spark in Game 5 after being largely ineffective against the Panthers.

“He’s a horse,” defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “He’s always showing up in the biggest moments. You look at all his performances in the playoffs, he’s one of the best to ever do it.

Draisaitl picked up the puck at center ice, skated between Florida defenders and placed the puck on the tape of Foegele’s stick for a tap-in that Sergei Bobrovsky had almost no chance of stopping. This, of course, did not stop the packed crowd of over 18 thousand people from shouting mockingly: “Ser-gei! Ser-gei!” starting before the hymns and continuing throughout the night.

The goalkeeper everyone calls “Bob” was hardly to blame, though, with mistakes in front of him also contributing to the 2-on-1 run that ended with Henrique beating Bobrovsky in a 2-on-1 run after a perfect pass from Mattias Janmark. The Panthers in front of their goalkeeper looked rigid and timid, unlike the juggernaut that reached the final for the second year in a row and won the first three games to reach the brink of the first title in the franchise’s history.

“We have a game to play,” Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. “We were ready from the beginning to play a seven-game series and nothing changes now. We went up three and they played three good games. Now it’s up to us to win at home.”

Florida had just six shots on net midway through the game and finished with 21. Continuing the trend of being there when the Oilers need him most, Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner made timely saves to frustrate the Panthers, allowing just one goal to Aleksander Barkov less than 90 seconds into the third period.

“He was lights out when we needed him,” Janmark said of Skinner.

The first time Barkov passed the puck, 10 seconds after Henrique scored, the goal went off the board when Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch successfully challenged for impediment. A lengthy analysis found that Sam Reinhart entered the offensive zone perhaps a few inches or less before the puck, the announcement of which was followed by a roar from the fans.

“I actually didn’t think it was that close,” Knoblauch said. “In my opinion, it was definitely off the table.”

This wasn’t the loudest Rogers Place has received, and there were many contenders for that distinction. The decibel meter shown on the video screens reached 113.8 when the Oilers took the ice to the sound of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

It may have approached that level of noise when Ryan McLeod and Nurse scored empty goals in the final minutes, triggering chants of “We want the Cup!” “We want the Cup!” and a wild celebration at the viewing party outside.

This was the height of a city that was flooded by a sea of ​​blue and orange in the city center hours before the album was released. Friday might as well have been a holiday in Edmonton, home to nearly a million people now fully capable of allowing themselves to dream about the Oilers adding another white championship flag to the rafters — and doing so in the most improbable way possible.

“We are very excited to continue our season,” McDavid said. “That’s what it’s all about. One game at a time, one day at a time. I look forward to the next one.”