Edmonton outscored 11-4 in 1st period throughout series, on brink of another Cup Final disappointment
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EDMONTON — Darnell Nurse admitted he doesn’t know why the Edmonton Oilers keep having slow starts.
Neither, for that matter, do his teammates or the coaching staff.
And if they don’t figure it out in a big hurry, they’ll soon be watching the Florida Panthers celebrate a Stanley Cup championship in front of their forlorn faces.
Again.
It was, to use the old cliche, deja vu all over again for the Oilers, who suffered a 5-2 loss against the Panthers in Game 5 of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Final Saturday.
Stop if you’ve heard this before, but the Oilers found themselves trailing in this game early on.
In this instance, the Panthers built up a 2-0 lead by the time the first intermission arrived. Different game, same old tiresome story for an Edmonton team that managed just 0:39 of offensive-zone time in the opening period, sucking the life out of what had been an incredibly raucous crowd at Rogers Place.
Consider that the Oilers have been outscored 11-4 in the first period in the first five games of this series, which Florida now leads 3-2. In each of those first periods, the Panthers have scored at least two goals.
Why do the Oilers keep producing moribund opening 20 minutes in these games, Nurse was asked?
“If we were coming in here and trying to start slow, I would have an answer for you,” the Oilers defenseman replied. “But that’s not the case.”
They might not be trying to do it. But they are.
And if they do it again in Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC), there’s a good chance the Panthers will be hoisting the Stanley Cup in their home arena after beating the Oilers in the Final for a second consecutive year.
Last June, Edmonton came back from a 3-0 series deficit only to lose Game 7 by a heartbreaking 2-1 score. Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe opened the scoring in that game, something the Panthers have done in four consecutive games this time around.
“I think we’ve come out flat now most of the series,” defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. “So that’s something I think is a mindset.
“I think we’ve just got to get pucks in, try to put pressure on them. They’re obviously a good team for a reason and they’ve come out and shown it early in games. And we’ve got to be better than that at the start.”
In reality, the Oilers need to improve from start to finish.
Florida may only have a one-game edge in this Final but they have been, for the most part, the better team. Both of Edmonton’s wins have come in overtime. As such, the Panthers have either been tied or leading at the end of regulation in all five games. In the process, they have outscored the Oilers 23-16.
Forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said the Oilers need to “simplify things” in order to be more competitive.
“We talked about playing with speed but, I mean, at the end of the day you’ve just got to go out there and do it,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way.”
The Oilers will look to last year’s Final for a boost, having defeated the Panthers three consecutive times before losing Game 7. They’ll have to beat Florida twice in a row this time in order to win the elusive Cup.
“Knowing we’re in a difficult position and have to win our last two games is something we’re confident we can do,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We’ve been through difficult situations before and it was just another one that we’ll overcome.”
With the Panthers one win away from another Stanley Cup, the Oilers are running out of chances to do just that.
FLA vs. EDM
FLA vs. CAR | EDM vs. DAL
FLA vs. TOR | CAR vs. WSH | DAL vs. WPG | EDM vs. VGK
OTT vs. TOR | FLA vs. TBL | MTL vs. WSH | NJD vs. CAR
STL vs. WPG | COL vs. DAL | MIN vs. VGK | EDM vs. LAK
