EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Connor McDavid didn’t get a single point, so Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers’ other top players stepped up and put them one win away from the Stanley Cup.
Draisaitl made his first big impact in the Finals by setting up Warren Foegele’s opening goal, Adam Henrique and Jack Hyman scored in the second period and the Oilers beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 in Game 6 on Friday night to force a Game 7.
“At the end of the day, we play to win and this is going to be the toughest game for us,” Draisaitl said. “We have to bring our game back.”
They are the first team to tie the Finals after trailing 3-0 in the series since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. The Oilers have a chance Monday night at Sunrise to join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs as the only NHL teams to come back from that deficit to win the Stanley Cup.
“Our belief was unwavering,” Hyman said. “No matter what happened throughout the year, we always felt we could win. No matter how dire the conditions, we felt we had a chance. It was a long season in which we faced adversity that prepared us. Next season will be the toughest. To do it in front of this crowd feels unbelievable. Now to have a chance to win, this is our first opportunity to win.”
The chance to make hockey history and end Canada’s three-decade-long Cup drought came only after McDavid scored four points each in Games 4 and 5 to pull the Oilers from the brink of victory. It was the first time in his nine-year career he won a game in which he didn’t score a single point or take a shot on net.
Draisaitl, his longtime teammate from Germany who has also been the league’s MVP and is considered one of the best players in the world, lit a spark in Game 5 after being largely ineffective against the Panthers.
“He’s a horse,” defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “He always shows up in the biggest moments. You look at all his playoff performances, he’s one of the best players to ever do it.”
Draisaitl took the puck at center ice, skated through Florida defenders and placed the puck on the tape of Foegele’s stick for a tap-in that Sergei Bobrovsky had virtually no chance to stop. Of course, that didn’t stop the excited crowd of more than 18,000 from breaking into a mocking chant of “Ser-gei! Ser-gei!” before the national anthem and continuously throughout the night.
The goalkeeper that everyone calls “Bob” can hardly be blamed, however, as mistakes in front of him also contributed to a 2-on-1 rush that ended with Henrique beating Bobrovsky in a 2-on-1 rush on a perfect pass from Mattias Janmark. In front of their goalkeeper, the Panthers looked sneaky and timid and a far cry from the veterans who reached the finals for the second consecutive year and were on the verge of the first title in franchise history by winning the first three games.
“We have one game left,” Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. “We were prepared from the beginning to play a seven-game series, and now nothing has changed. We won three games, and they played three good games. Now it’s up to us to win at home.”
Florida had only six shots on net midway through the game and finished with 21. Continuing the trend of being there when the Oilers needed him most, Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner made timely saves and held off the Panthers, allowing only one goal to Aleksander Barkov less than 90 seconds into the third period.
“He’s played great when we’ve needed him,” Janmark said of Skinner.
The first time Barkov had the puck stripped from him 10 seconds after Henrique scored, the goal was ruled off the board when Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch successfully challenged for offside. A lengthy review found Sam Reinhart had entered the offensive zone perhaps an inch or so before the puck, which prompted loud cheers from the fans after the announcement.
“I really didn’t think it was that close,” Knoblach said. “In my mind, it was definitely offside.”
It wasn’t the loudest sound at Rogers Place, and there were plenty of candidates for that honor. The decibel meter shown on the video screen reached 113.8 when the Oilers took the ice to the tune of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
The noise must have reached such a pitch when Ryan McLeod and Nurse scored into empty nets in the final minutes, sparking chants of “We want the Cup!” “We want the Cup!” and a wild celebration from the spectators outside.
It was fever pitch in a city that had been awash in a sea of blue and orange for hours before the puck dropped. Friday could have been a holiday in Edmonton, home to nearly a million people who have now fully committed themselves to dreaming that the Oilers will add another white championship banner to the rafters — and do so in the most improbable way possible.
“We’re excited to get our season going,” McDavid said. “That’s it. One game at a time, one day at a time. Looking forward to the next game.”
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