The Florida Panthers emerged victorious in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, defeating the Edmonton Oilers 2-1, to secure the first NHL title in the team’s history and avert a momentous collapse.
It appeared as though the Panthers would easily win the franchise’s first championship after jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final. But bad play on both sides of the rink, along with Edmonton’s 18-5 scoring against Florida over the three-game losing streak, erased their seemingly insurmountable advantage and set up an exciting Game 7.
The Panthers opened the scoring on Monday night in front of a boisterous crowd at Amerant Bank Arena, something they hadn’t done since winning Game 3. Just after Florida’s power play ended, Carter Verhaeghe deflected an Evan Rodrigues shot to give the team a 1-0 lead around four and a half minutes into the first frame.
With his goal, Verhaeghe tied the Panthers franchise record for most goals in a single postseason. It was his eleventh goal of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Florida’s lead was short-lived, as Mattias Janmark tied the score at one minute and fifty seconds later with a breakaway goal.
When Warren Foegele’s attempt at goal in the second period went past Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, defenseman Dmitry Kulikov cleared it just inches before it crossed the goal line, giving the Oilers a brief lead.
At the 15:11 mark of the session, Sam Reinhart gave the Panthers the lead 2-1 after Kulikov’s amazing blind save made room for him to skate to the other end of the rink and bury the wrister from the right circle past Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner.
Reinhart saw the goal as a chance for atonement because, although leading the team in goals scored during the regular season, he was scoreless throughout the three-game losing streak.
As the third period went on, Edmonton came closer and closer to tying the score several times, but they were unable to take advantage. In the triumph, Bobrovsky finished with 23 saves.
The Panthers ultimately won the first Stanley Cup in their history after losing in the championship game the previous year and twice before that. After losing in the final, Florida becomes just the third team in the last 40 years to win the Stanley Cup the following year.
It’s no longer a dream. It is reality rather than a dream. After the game, Panthers standout Matthew Tkachuk remarked, “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.” “I’m amazed at how wonderful the past two years have been. I’m so grateful for this bunch of guys because we have something truly unique here.
Conn Smythe Trophy winner Connor McDavid of the Oilers scored 42 points in 25 games, including eight goals and thirty-four assists. In addition to becoming the third player in NHL history to score 40 or more points in a single postseason, McDavid eclipsed Wayne Gretzky’s record for assists in a playoff year.
In the Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers wanted to make NHL history by being the second club to overcome a 0–3 deficit. In the history of the NHL postseason, four teams have recovered to win a series after falling behind 0-3; however, a reverse sweep of the Stanley Cup Final has only occurred once, when the Maple Leafs overcame the Red Wings in 1942, more than 80 years ago.
The defeat prolongs Canadian clubs’ three-decade Stanley Cup drought. In 1993, the Montreal Canadiens were the last team to win the Cup.
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