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As devastated as they may have felt to surrender the latest game-tying goal in Stanley Cup Final history, the Florida Panthers were not demoralized.
The Edmonton Oilers tied the score at 4 and forcing another overtime with just 17.8 seconds remaining and, that moment may have broken some teams.
Those who have witnessed the Florida’s playoff runs these past three seasons banked on the boys in the visitors’ dressing room being resilient.
And they were.
“I’m not a huge believer in experience unless you talk about it, unless you draw on it. But there’s some truth to that,” Paul Maurice said Saturday morning, hours after the Panthers beat the Oilers 5-4 on Brad Marchand’s goal in the second overtime.
“We’ve had some tough ones. The three years of playoffs that these men have been through, you’re going to have some tough nights. You’re going to have some games get away from you, we got beat 8-1 in here last year in the Final, but being able to recover from that, that’s critical.
“I didn’t love our overtime. The first period of our overtime I thought we got better as it built. But I’m careful about critiquing that because it’s a tough way to get to overtime.”
Sam Bennett got called for a controversial goalie interference in the first period which led to an Edmonton goal but promised to camp out in front out of the net for the remainder of this now best-of-5 Finals.
“That’s where I’m going to be for the rest of this series,” he told TNT afterward when Jackie Redmond said that’s a place Alberta residents don’t want to see him.
Bennett added his teammates “regrouped” during the two intermissions following Corey Perry’s game-tying goal in the dying seconds of the third.
“There’s just so many leaders in our locker room, a lot of experience, a lot of great leaders,” Bennett said. “There wasn’t one thing that was said. It was just a collective group of guys chipping in and saying the right things, just making sure everyone was mentally prepared. And yeah, we all did a great job.”
Said Evan Rodrigues: “We stuck with it. We didn’t get down. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. You stay up, you stay together, and you get back out there. I think that’s the biggest thing is just staying together.”
After Marchand beat Stuart Skinner on a partial breakaway with a shot that slid through the Oilers goalie’s pads for the winning goal at 8:05 of the second OT, “I just wanted to hug Bob,” Nate Schmidt said of Sergei Bobrovsky. “I just wanted to give him a big hug.”
“It was obviously a very important game for our team,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “Luckily, it went our way. You could tell the excitement our group had in that moment, for sure.”
There was also sense of relief afterward, and plenty of tension during the two overtimes.
The Panthers, of course, were less than 20 seconds away from coming home 1-1. After losing Game 1 in overtime, another loss in Edmonton would have brought them home in a pretty big hole.
On Saturday, Maurice framed the difference between his team heading into Monday’s Game 3 in Sunrise tied 1-1 with the Oilers as opposed to trailing 0-2.
“It’s mathematically significant. I’d like to think we’d be dragging here today this morning if we had lost that game having had the lead for so long,” Maurice said. “But I think we’re really good at cutting it off. It’s the same morning this morning at the meal room as it was two days ago: It’s on to the next day.”
Coming off back-to-back thrillers — the Panthers lost Game 1 4-3 on Leon Draisaitl’s power-play goal with 30 seconds left in overtime on Wednesday — there isn’t much time for rest, though both teams could catch up on sleep on their 3,000-mile-long flight from western Canada to South Florida.
The Panthers, who won Game 7 against the Oilers in Sunrise last year, have snatched away home ice advantage with Friday’s win.
However, with their success on the road in the playoffs this year (9-3) and the Oilers’ record away from Edmonton (6-3), does home ice matter at this point?
“The advantage is marginal. It’s there. It’s marginal,” Maurice said. “A lot of it happens probably just on running your bench in terms of minutes you put on people when you’re on the road and you get a d-zone draw, especially when you have the players at the top end like Edmonton has, you run your top end of your bench harder than you will at home.
“So, you get a little bit of a reprieve there with understanding who’s coming out first off whistles.”
Some good injury news for the Panthers: Defenseman Aaron Ekblad is “fine,” Maurice said, after he hurting his left hand blocking a short from Evander Kane in the first overtime period.
Ekblad left the ice in serious pain, but returned and finished the game, logging 33:29 of ice time, more than any Florida player besides Seth Jones (34:35), who the Panthers acquired in a trade from the Blackhawks on March 1.
“He is as advertised,” Maurice said warmly of Jones.
Star center Connor McDavid (35:07) led the Oilers in ice time Friday.
“Anytime you get a chance to go back home in a series, it gives you an extra added energy boost,” Schmidt said. “But right now we’ve just got a lot of recovery to do for the next couple days.”
Paul Maurice on Pete DeBoer Being Fired: ‘He’s Going to Be OK’
The Rat King: Marchand Has a Huge Pair for Panthers in Cup Final
MarchLand: Panthers Beat Oilers in 2OT in Game 2, Tie Cup Final
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