Panthers rattled after blowing 3-0 series lead to Oilers: 'You feel it. It hurts'

Source: The New York Times
Author: Michael Russo

EDMONTON -- The door to the Florida Panthers locker room remained closed for more than 20 minutes after Friday's game. Once it swung open, after whatever words were exchanged by teammates trying to lift each other up for an inexplicable Game 7 that will now happen Monday, you could feel the disbelief in how they've gotten to this point.

Players looked rattled, lost, tight as a drum and completely without answers.

Eight nights ago, the Panthers were up 3-0 in this series and one victory away from hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Eight nights and three losses later, the Panthers remain one victory from winning the Stanley Cup and sure seem like they're on the verge of one of the biggest choke jobs in NHL history at the hands of Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.

Eight nights ago, the Panthers were anticipating a four-game sweep.

Eight nights later, they'll now be prepping for a winner-take-all Game 7 in Sunrise, Fla.

It has been 79 years since an NHL team rattled off three wins in a row when facing elimination in the Stanley Cup Final. The only team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 lead and the Stanley Cup in the process was the 1942 Detroit Red Wings to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

We're talking about something that hasn't been done since World War II.

"We have belief. I think that's the word I want to use," the Oilers' Zach Hyman said. "Every game you win, it gets stronger -- and the outside belief from other people, they start believing, too. A lot of people weren't so interested in the Final when it was 0-3, but now I'm sure a lot of people will be tuning in.

"That's why sports is amazing, because the unthinkable can happen. We're in a spot where we thought it could happen, when nobody else believed that it could. Now we've got an opportunity. That's all you can ask for."

Somehow in three days, the Panthers need to brush off Friday's 5-1 defeat at raucous Rogers Place and rediscover that lost swagger, confidence and, most importantly, game that got them to this final round for the second consecutive year.

This seems like a monumental task the way they've been playing the past three games and the way so many players on their team, particularly top-six forwards, have seen their games completely crater.

"Right now, if you walked into the room, there won't be a lot of happy people," coach Paul Maurice said. "I'm not worried about what it does tonight. It doesn't have to be right tonight. You've suffered a defeat. You feel it. It hurts. You lick your wounds, and we start building that back tomorrow. But who you are tonight means nothing to who you're going to be two days from now."

He'd better hope so, or the Panthers will make the type of history he won't want to be associated with.

In Game 6, McDavid -- who very likely will be the Conn Smythe Trophy winner, regardless of Monday's outcome -- was just a rumor, with no points and no shots on goal. Yet his teammates got it done: guys like Warren Foegele and Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman, who scored his 70th goal of 2023-24, regular season and playoffs included.

But on Florida's side, the only player who seemed to show up was goalie Sergei Bobrovsky when the Panthers mustered just two shots in the first period and went the first 31:55 of the game without a shot from a forward and captain Aleksander Barkov, who had a goal overturned because Sam Reinhart was literally a hair offside and later scored a highlight-reel goal that pulled a deficit from 3-0 to 3-1.

It's alarming how so many of the Panthers' big guns have gone completely MIA.

"Mr. Clutch" Carter Verhaeghe is minus-11 in the past four games and has one goal, one assist and 17 shots in the past eight games.

Matthew Tkachuk, minus-7 in the past four games, has one goal and six points in the past 11 games and two goals and 12 points in the past 17.

Reinhart, who scored 57 goals in the regular season, has one goal, two assists and 16 shots in the past eight games.

Not good, to say the least, and if this doesn't change, the Oilers will be parading around the Panthers' home ice on Monday night.

"They came out hungrier than us," Verhaeghe said. "They wanted it and that was kind of it. We didn't really get to our forecheck off the start, and they took it to us, so I think it's for us to get better and I think we need some better starts."

The Panthers' mantra all playoffs has been "win the day," but they've been doing a lot of losing lately. You do have to wonder if their relentless style has caught up.

The Oilers were faster, stronger and kept the Panthers from getting to their game. Florida's top pair, Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling, has struggled the past two games. And then on the power play, the Panthers continue to struggle against the league's best penalty kill, being way too cute and not getting pucks to the net.

"I think we're lacking a little bit of offensive speed, and that would be true of our five-on-five game," Maurice said. "We're getting jammed into corners. So we'll look at places where we can generate speed or keep our speed."

What's disenchanting if you're Maurice is how lost the team seemed in the locker room. The stress of this situation appears to be getting to them.

Verhaeghe just kept calling it "tough." He said the word about a dozen times, to describe just about everything, particularly how the Panthers recover from this.

They're going to have to do some serious soul-searching during their six-hour flight back to South Florida on Saturday and during Sunday's practice.

"It's tough. Obviously, a tough one to take," Verhaeghe said. "It's obviously tough, but we're excited to go home and play a Game 7 at home in front of our fans, and it's going to be a good one.

"I think we're a confident group. They're here for a reason, we're here for a reason and, I mean, it's the Stanley Cup Final. They're a really good team and it's for us to come back and respond next game."

It's time for one of the Panthers' big guns to step up or everything this franchise achieved this season will be for naught. Verhaeghe expects a jacked-up crowd and "an awesome game."

"We have one game to go," defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. "We were ready right from the start to play a seven-game series, and nothing changes now. We got up three, and they played three good games. Now it's up to us to win at home."