2024 Stanley Cup Final: Winners and Losers from Panthers-Oilers Game 6

OK, raise your hand if you saw this coming.

The Edmonton Oilers became the third team in NHL history to force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final after trailing 3-0 in the championship series, defeating the Florida Panthers, 5-1, before a raucous crowd in the season's final game at Rogers Place.

Game 7 will be played Monday on Florida's home ice at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.

Teams taking a three-game lead in the finals are 27-1, with only the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs having rallied back from a 3-0 deficit. The Detroit Red Wings rallied from 3-0 back to 3-3 in 1945 but were beaten in Game 7 by the Maple Leafs.

Edmonton was outscored 11-4 through the first three games but began the turnaround with an 8-1 home win last Saturday. The Oilers made it 3-2 with a 5-3 win in Florida on Tuesday.

"I think (the Panthers) got spooked in Game 4," ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro said, "and they haven't found their game since."

The B/R hockey team was in place to take in all Friday night's action and deliver a post-game list of winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.

Just when it seemed like Connor McDavid's Batman would have to go it alone in rallying the Oilers as his Robin-like running mate, Leon Draisaitl, skidded through the first five games of the series, Boy Wonder re-announced his presence with authority.

Draisaitl, who said before the game that he wasn't happy with his own performance, got the scoring started in the first period when he led an Edmonton rush into Florida's zone and then patiently eschewed a shot before feathering a pass to Warren Foegele for a 1-0 lead.

That goal came at 7:26 of the period and further stoked an already white-hot Rogers Place crowd, and Draisaitl continued to play at a noticeably higher level, generating three shots on goal in 16:40 of ice time and finishing at plus-1 for the night.

He'd mustered just two assists and was an overall minus-2 through the first five games.

Draisaitl's well-timed resurgence more than made up for a pedestrian performance by McDavid, who had no points and no shots in 18:58 on the ice.

It's the eighth time in his career he's gone shotless and pointless, but the first time the Oilers have won.

"That's a 5-1 win without a point or a shot from McDavid," ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro said. "They are much more than just No. 97."

It was a perfectly timed momentum-changer.

Just 10 seconds after Edmonton had taken a 2-0 lead on Adam Henrique's goal in the first minute of the second period, Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov sucked the air out of Rogers Place when he beat Stuart Skinner with Florida's third shot of the game.

Until he didn't.

The Oilers' coaching staff quickly chose to challenge the call with a suggestion that the play had begun with an offside entry into the offensive zone. And after a few tense moments in the league's on-site "situation room," the off-ice officials supported the challenge and disallowed the goal to maintain Edmonton's two-goal advantage.

Had the goal been upheld, the Oilers would not only have seen their lead cut in half but they would have been assessed a two-minute minor penalty.

"That's obviously a hard call and a great job by (the coaches)," Edmonton defenseman Mattias Ekholm told ESPN's Emily Kaplan between periods. "If they don't get it right, they know we're going to get on them."

Florida coach Paul Maurice, who reacted angrily to the overturned goal, was his typically wry self when discussing the play after the game, suggesting he wouldn't have challenged it based on the replay he'd seen on the bench.

"We'll get still frames," he said. "We'll bring in the CIA. We'll figure it out."

Fans of Aleksander Barkov can look away.

Your man gets a pass on this one.

Because other than the sublimely skilled two-way forward, oft-considered the best player in the history of the Florida franchise, a precious few of the Panthers were present on Friday.

Barkov was the only Florida player to get anything behind Stuart Skinner, scoring the goal that was ultimately disallowed after a video review determined Sam Reinhart had been offside in the second period, then beating him for a legit tally at 1:28 of the third.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Panthers' roster has gone MIA.

Sam Reinhart was a 57-goal scorer during the regular season but has skidded into non-factor territory in this series, registering just a goal and two assists overall and coming up empty--no goals, no assists, no nothing--since Florida established its 3-0 lead.

He's also a minus-6 in Edmonton's three wins, which can't help his case for demanding an eight-figure salary when/if he becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

Also vanishing since last week has been Carter Verhaeghe.

The former Cup winner with Tampa Bay had a goal in Florida's series-opening win on June 8 but has been pointless in five games since, racking up an ugly minus-10 rating.

Though every cliche-spouter worth a roster spot has mentioned how the fourth victory of a series is the hardest one to get, there's a reason this hasn't happened since the 1940s.

Only four NHL teams out of 210 have rallied from 3-0 down in any playoff round, and just one of 28 in the final. No NBA team has done it, regardless of round, in 157 tries.

This makes it even harder to fathom how unlikely this has already been.

Florida looked superior in almost every facet of the game through three games, winning nearly all the 50/50 pucks, controlling offensive zone time with a relentless forecheck, and covering up any mistakes with a brick wall named Sergei Bobrovsky in goal.

They scored 11 goals to Edmonton's four and it didn't seem that close.

Then last Saturday's 8-1 win happened. And things haven't been the same since.

Though some dismissed it as a mere prelude to a gentlemen's sweep for the Panthers on home ice, the mojo didn't return in Florida's 5-3 loss on Tuesday and was only evident in brief bursts on Friday.

Edmonton has a +13 goal differential (18-5) across the last three games, which equals the best all-time margin across three games in a championship series, matching the 19-6 beating the Oilers put on the New York Islanders in Games 3, 4 and 5 to win a title in 1984.

It's the greatest spectacle in team sports.

A Game 7.

Particularly a Game 7 that'll decide a championship.

That's what's coming for NHL fans on Monday for the first time since 2019 when the St. Louis Blues hoisted the Stanley Cup after a 4-3 defeat of the Boston Bruins in the deciding game.

It's the first Game 7 in the 2024 tournament for the Panthers, who cruised past Tampa Bay (4-1), Boston (4-2) and the New York Rangers (4-2) through the first three rounds.

Edmonton, meanwhile, already played in and won a seventh game on the road this season, defeating Vancouver in the second round after trailing the series three games to two.

And, like the Blues five years ago, their rally to the brink of a title came after a regular season that started poorly, cost a coach (Jay Woodcroft) his job, and saw them reach the final after having been 10 points out of a playoff spot before the midway point of the schedule.

"There is a strong belief in our locker room," forward Zach Hyman told ESPN's Emily Kaplan. "We've talked about it a bunch, but no matter how dire the circumstances we have an unshakeable belief that we can still accomplish our objectives.

"The next one's gonna be the hardest, but it feels unbelievable and it's our first opportunity to win (the series), so we relish that."