It was at the same time tight-checking and also wildly entertaining. Even Panthers coach Paul Maurice on the losing end could appreciate the value of must-see hockey.
“Its potential (is) just a spectacular seven-gamer,” Maurice said “Up and down the ice, it’s still fast. There isn’t any casualness. ... It was honest, it was hard, it was fast and it was tight. It was an overtime game.”
It had a little bit of everything, from Draisaitl scoring 66 seconds in to Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch unsuccessfully challenging Florida's tying goal by Sam Bennett only to watch Brad Marchand get a power-play goal less than two minutes later.
Edmonton rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie it. And Sergei Bobrovsky and Stuart Skinner each made some stops on high-danger scoring chances along the way.
“It’s my job to give us a chance to win,” Skinner said. “I think you’ve got to give a lot of props to Bob over there, too. He made some fantastic saves, especially in overtime.”
There were times the play bogged down, particularly late in regulation and in sudden death OT when two powerhouse teams minimized the risks they were taking. Even for long stretches when the Panthers had the lead, there was not much ice for the Oilers to get through — and they expect more of that moving forward.
“Tight checking," said Mattias Ekholm, who scored Edmonton's tying goal in the third period. “I think that there’s two very experienced lineups with a lot of playoff experience and have been in these situations. Everybody’s pretty confident and comfortable in these. I think it’s going to be a lot of the same.”
Part of what made it masterpiece hockey was how good the Panthers and Oilers are when the pressure is on. Sure, mistakes were made that led to goals, including the puck over the glass penalty in OT, but much of the game was textbook fundamentals.
“The pucks go deep that are supposed to go deep,” Maurice said. “I think we had one all night we didn’t like, maybe two all night that we didn’t like our decision of the line. They didn’t fool around with it, either.”
A year after the Panthers went up 3-0 in the series only to lose three in a row and then defeat the Oilers in a tight Game 7, it's clear these opponents are again evenly matched. That is a recipe for some fun times ahead, with Game 2 Friday night in Edmonton the next chapter of a growing rivalry.
“It’s two great teams,” Ekholm said. “The thing now, too, is we know exactly how they play, they know exactly how we play. It’s those little, little details that are going to matter so much in the end. It’s one lost coverage for a second here or there, or a penalty like you saw tonight, or whatever it is. It’s teams that are also very comfortable in these moments and in these high stake games.”
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
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Credit: AP
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Credit: AP