The Florida Panthers made a late-game push to clinch, but the Edmonton Oilers hung on to force a Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Final. They scored early and often enough to force the Panthers to once again fly over 2,500 miles for a game in Edmonton.
The Oilers opened the scoring on Connor Brown’s second goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The score remained 1-0 for the rest of the first period. Edmonton tacked on to their lead in the early minutes of the second period. Zach Hyman scored his 15th goal of the playoffs on the power play to make it 2-0. Connor McDavid scored exactly five minutes into the period to give the Oilers a three-goal cushion.
After that, the Panthers started to find the back of the net. Matthew Tkachuk got his team on the board to make it 3-1. After Corey Perry scored to make it a three-goal game again, Evan Rodrigues continued his stretch of being a thorn in the Oilers’ side with his fourth goal of the Stanley Cup Final. The score was 4-2 after 40 minutes of play. Just over four minutes into the third period, Oliver Ekman-Larsson made it a one-goal game, re-energizing the Panthers’ home crowd.
The Panthers pushed hard to send it to overtime, even blocking multiple opportunities for the Oilers to score on the empty net. However, McDavid sniped one into the open net in the closing seconds to make it a final score of 5-3.
The Oilers drag the Panthers back to Edmonton for a Game 6 after falling into a 3-0 hole to start the series. They need just one more for a winner-take-all Game 7. Meanwhile, the Panthers have two more chances to win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Puck drop for Game 6 will be on Friday at 8 p.m. EDT and 6 p.m. MDT.