Think home ice doesn’t make that much of a difference? Try selling that to an Edmonton Oilers team that lost by one goal in Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals to the same Florida Panthers they’re facing this year
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Home-ice advantage can be a fickle fiend in the NHL playoffs.
Finish the 82-game regular season with a better record than your opponent and, voila, you get to open and potentially close the best-of-7 game series in your own town.
Think it doesn’t make that much of a difference? Try selling that to an Edmonton Oilers team that lost by one goal in Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals to the same Florida Panthers they are up against a year later.
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That one was played in Sunrise, Fla., in front of a crowd so hostile Oilers captain Connor McDavid wanted no part in coming back out in front of to accept the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP.
If he would have skated up to shake the hand of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and fight up a smile for a photo mere moments after suffering the toughest loss of his career, you would likely still be able to hear the boos and heckles echoing 4,800 km across the continent.
Last year, the Panthers held home-ice advantage, jumping out to a quick 2-0 series lead inside the friendly confines of Amerant Bank Arena, before taking a stranglehold on things with a win in Game 3 in Edmonton.
But that didn’t stop the Oilers faithful from turning out in droves once again for Game 4, on the way to a convincingly complete 8-1 win that turned the tide for an Oilers comeback to even the series 3-3 heading back to Florida for Game 7.
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This time, if the series once again goes the distance — which all signs suggest, given how the two teams played almost three periods of overtime on the way to splitting Games 1 and 2 — the rubber match would be held at Rogers Place.
But there’s just one thing. The Oilers would need to get to Game 7 first.
And that can be a challenge, given how the Panthers wrested home-ice advantage from the Oilers by winning Game 2 on the road. That gives them three of the remaining five games in the series at home, beginning with Game 3 on Monday (6 p.m., CBC, Sportsnet), as well as Game 4 on Thursday and Game 6 on June 16.
That means all Florida has to do is win their remaining home games to repeat as Stanley Cup champions, while the Oilers have to do at least what the Panthers did to open the series and hope for a split on the road to get back in the driver’s seat if they want the best chance at avoiding another miserable off-season.
No pressure, right?
It turns out that’s the very approach the Oilers are taking as the scene shifts to the sunny south, not planning on changing anything they don’t have to in their preparation or mindset.
“As for a tactical thing, you’re not going to change how your team’s playing,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “You make little adjustments, but pretty much you’re identity’s your identity throughout the playoffs.
“So, I think we’ll probably stay the course.”
It’s hard to argue against, considering it’s the same game plan that saw the Oilers go on streaks of six, two and five wins over the playoffs, and have yet to lose back-to-back since opening Round 1 on the road against the Los Angeles Kings.
There is one overarching strategic on-ice advantage available to the Panthers over the next two games, of course.
“One thing you don’t have is the opportunity for line matchups, and I think Florida does like their line matchups,” Knoblauch said. “So, it will be difficult for us to get away from those.
“But we have the opportunity to play four lines, which allows us to maybe shake those line matchups a little bit.”
So far in the series, the Panthers have been relying on their best players to take a lion’s share of the ice time, with four players up over 29 minutes, compared to two for Edmonton in Game 1. And six over the 29-minute mark in a Game 2 that went to double-overtime, compared to four Oilers players.
And the law of averages suggests the longer the series goes, the more opportunity there will be for fresher players down the lineup to contribute and make a difference.
“We’ve got four lines that we trust in,” Knoblauch said. “So, I think that’s probably the biggest change from being home to away from a strategy standpoint.”
E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com
On X: @GerryModdejonge
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