Connor McDavid and the Oilers see season end with 2nd straight Stanley Cup Final loss at Florida
The frustration was fresh and yet all too familiar for Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers after exiting the ice in Florida for a second straight June to make way for another Panthers’ Stanley Cup celebration.
Too many slow starts, not enough offense and spotty goaltending led to the Panthers defending their title with a 5-1 win over Edmonton in Game 6 on Tuesday night. For Draisaitl, there was no point making comparisons to last year’s 2-1 loss in Game 7 because the result was the same.
“We battled. But we’re not leaving here as winners,” Draisaitl said. “The takeaway is that we didn’t win. Nobody cares. Like, nobody cares. We didn’t win. So try again next year.”
Rats, foiled again.
The lopsided score led to Panthers fans kicking off their toy rat-tossing festivities with 6:34 left when Sam Reinhart completed his hat trick with his first of two empty-net goals. And the ice was littered with rats by the time the Oilers glumly made their way to their locker room.
“I haven’t really had time to digest it yet,” defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. “It’s painful. It’s not fun. Obviously, not what we wanted.”
Edmonton became the third team in the NHL’s post-expansion era to lose consecutive Cup Final series appearances. The Oilers joined Boston, which lost to Montreal in both 1977 and ’78, and St. Louis, which lost three straight appearances from 1968-70.
Edmonton’s loss also extended Canada’s Cup drought to 32 years. Canadian-based teams are now 0-7 in the final since Montreal won the Cup, beating the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings in five games in 1993.
The Oilers were eventually overwhelmed in a series they opened with a 4-3 overtime win in becoming just the 11th of 63 teams to lose the Cup when opening a final with a win at home.
“We lost to a really good team. Nobody quit, nobody threw in the towel, but they’re a heck of a team,” captain Connor McDavid said. ”Very deserving. I don’t know what else to tell you, they were really good.”
Slow starts were again an issue on a day Draisaitl opened by saying: “You still haven’t seen our best. We have to get to our game quicker.”
Despite out-shooting Florida 10-9 through the first period, Edmonton trailed 2-0. The Oilers were outscored by a combined margin of 13-4 in the opening period this series, with Florida scoring 10 straight since the midway point of the opening period of Game 2.
Reinhart’s opening goal 4:36 in came on Florida’s first shot on net, and after Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard wasn’t able to control a pass into his mid-section at the Oilers blue line. Reinhart pounced on the loose puck, drove to the net and snapped a shot inside the right post while falling.
Stuart Skinner got the start after sitting out Game 5, but had little help in front of him in allowing three goals on 23 shots. He finished the series allowing 16 goals on 105 shots in five starts, and looked little like the goalie who entered the final on a 6-1 roll in which he allowed 10 combined goals, with three shutouts.
“It was just consistency. They played a consistent game,” Skinner said. “I felt our game was up and down. … We weren’t as consistent as they were.”
Coach Kris Knoblauch was asked to assess the play of Skinner, who was replaced by Calvin Pickard after allowing three goals on 17 shots in Edmonton’s 5-4 OT win in Game 4.
“I thought he gave us solid goaltending. And when he didn’t, Picks came in and made up for that,” Knoblauch said. “And so, we didn’t lose this on Stu not playing on his game at all.”
Secondary scoring was an issue for an Edmonton team playing without Zach Hyman (broken wrist), who had 16 goals and six assists during last year’s playoff run.
The Oilers proved over-reliant on Draisaitl and Corey Perry to carry the scoring load. The pair combined to score seven of Edmonton’s 17 goals in the series, with McDavid providing a goal and six assists while being swarmed throughout by the relentless Panthers.
The Oilers’ Cup final record dropped to 5-4, with the team losing its past three appearances. Edmonton last won in 1990, when the Mark Messier-led team won a five-game series over Boston.
Knoblauch took solace in the Oilers reaching the Cup final despite being deemed underdogs for much of the playoffs. Their run began in overcoming a 2-0 first-round deficit to beat Los Angeles in six games, before knocking off Vegas and Dallas in five games each.
“For us to get to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final being a bunch of underdogs is a pretty good accomplishment,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it hurts just because we felt that we could have won it all,” Knoblauch added. “It hurts right now, and I don’t think it’s going to let up for a very long time.”
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