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The Florida Panthers host the Edmonton Oilers in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final tonight, with the defending champions leading the series 2-1.
After the teams split the first two games, with both requiring overtime, Game 3 was a very different kind of contest. The Panthers dominated the scoreboard, winning 6-1, but the result was overshadowed by fights and penalties. Constant scraps after the whistle gave way to a full line brawl in the third period and by the end of the night, the Oilers had been given 85 penalty minutes, the third most in the history of the Final.
Whether Edmonton can keep its emotions in check will go a long way towards deciding tonight's pivotal Game 4. Kris Knoblauch is making significant changes to his lineup but is choosing to stick with Stuart Skinner in net. Follow along below for live updates, analysis and reaction.
SUNRISE, Fla. — A year ago, Connor McDavid stood inside this building and channelled a lifetime’s worth of hopes, dreams and frustrations into a rallying cry he delivered to his Edmonton Oilers teammates, peppering in 14 F-bombs behind closed doors while urging them to “Dig! In! Right! Now!”
With the Stanley Cup Final rematch against the Florida Panthers spinning in a similarly unfavorable direction following Monday’s 6-1 loss, the Oilers captain sounded a different note of defiance.
“Obviously it wasn’t our best. Not our best at all,” McDavid told reporters, his team trailing 2-1 in the Final. “I don’t think our best has shown up all series long, but it’s coming.”
While not nearly as visceral a reaction as the one caught by Amazon’s embedded cameras last spring, it was the kind of comment that made your ears perk up and take notice.
When the best player on the planet starts making statements that sound like promises on a stage as critical as this one, it would be unwise to ignore them.
Read more below.
GO FURTHER
For Connor McDavid and the Oilers, a new ‘dig in’ moment arrives
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Fans of the Panthers, Oilers and the NHL in general didn't hold back in their assessment of a Game 3 that grew uglier as it went on…
Moshe P: If it were possible to lose a series in one game this would be it.
Douglas R: Embarrassing game for the NHL.
Jordan M: Real bush league business down the stretch but it still only counts as one loss. Will be interesting to see what version of Edmonton shows up in Game 4, I guess.
Jason I: I am seriously surprised how bad Edmonton has embarrassed themselves, not only with the score but with the way they played, just pathetic.
Remember, you can share your thoughts with a chance to be featured in this blog by emailing us at live@theathletic.com or, if you're a subscriber, you can head over to the "Discuss" tab at the top of this page.
Edmonton's 85 penalty minutes in Game 3 ranks as the third most by a team in the entire history of the Stanley Cup Final.
The record is held by the Canadiens, who took 90 penalty minutes against the Flames in 1986.
It wasn’t just that the Oilers took four penalties in the first period — it was how they took them. They were called for three offensive-zone fouls plus a too-many-men penalty.
Kane was sent to the box the first two times in the first eight minutes of the game and both trips were warranted. First, he cross-checked Gustav Forsling in the back in front of the Panthers net with the Oilers on a power play. Later he carelessly high-sticked Marchand on the forecheck. Kane was also in the mix as part of the too-many-men penalty.
Finally, Viktor Arvidsson was too aggressive around the crease and knocked over Bobrovsky. That led to a Verhaeghe goal on a Florida power play and a 2-0 deficit.
The Oilers wound up giving the Panthers 10 power plays and allowed them to score on two of them. It’s hard to win that way.
No individual moment in Game 3 better encapsulated how physically imposing the Panthers were than the sight of Connor McDavid getting sent tumbling to the ice after Ekblad stepped up to deliver an open-ice hit at full flight.
McDavid was staggered by the contact at the Florida blue line just before the midway point of the game and briefly headed down the tunnel to the Oilers dressing room. He missed less than a minute of game time and played a regular shift after returning.
Still, it was a bit jarring to see someone catch the game’s fastest player so cleanly. Ekblad was one of the defenders McDavid walked through while setting up a dazzling Game 2 assist, prompting the Panthers defenseman to say “yeah, McJesus” while summing up the challenges of defending that play.
In Game 3, Ekblad made McDavid look mortal by sending him to the ice with a textbook body check delivered shoulder to shoulder. That was part of the game-high five hits he delivered through 40 minutes.
Florida’s game plan is built around a belief that the physical toll will eventually wear down an opponent over the course of a best-of-seven series. They were the aggressors in Monday’s game, highlighted by Bennett bowling over Podkolzin, among numerous other thunderous checks.
Marchand scored the Panthers’ two biggest goals of the playoffs with a couple overtime winners, and his hot streak in the Stanley Cup Final continued Monday night when it took him just 56 seconds to score the game’s first goal and his fourth of the series.
At 37, Marchand became the oldest player to score in the first three games of a Stanley Cup Final. The previous mark was held by 35-year-old Frank Mahovlich with the 1973 Canadiens.
Marchand now has 11 goals in his Stanley Cup Final career, the most amongst active players. It was his eighth goal of the postseason, tying Ray Sheppard for the third-most goals by a Panthers player in his first postseason with the club (Matthew Tkachuk, 11; Dave Lowry, 10).
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One potential change to Edmonton's lineup that isn’t happening is between the pipes. Stuart Skinner remains the starter despite being pulled in the third period of Game 3 after allowing five goals on 23 shots.
“I felt like I was going to be in,” the goalie said. “I don’t really see too much reason to panic quite, quite yet. It’s a good opportunity for me to come back. We lost two in a row, and I’m good in these situations. I know how to bounce back. I know how to play well, so it’s just getting back to that.”
Knoblauch gave a ringing endorsement of Skinner after not declaring him the Game 4 starter immediately after the loss or over the two off days.
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve been really impressed with how Stu has handled a lot of things,” Knoblauch said. “One, the adversity, whether that’s regular season, playoffs. Things haven’t always gone smoothly, but he’s been able to work it out and respond.
“Another one is just how well he’s played in the second half of series. That goes for every single series last year, this year. There’s confidence that here’s a guy who’s going to continue to get better as the series goes on. Hopefully we have a few more games that he can stand up and play really well.”
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Oilers are making some significant lineup changes ahead of tonight's pivotal Game 4.
Coming off a 6-1 loss, possibly their worst performance of the postseason, the Oilers are inserting defenseman Troy Stecher for John Klingberg as well as adding winger Jeff Skinner and subtracting Viktor Arvidsson. This marks the first-ever Final appearance for both Stecher and Skinner.
“Everything’s a little bit magnified, but it’s just another game,” Stecher said. “I know what makes me a successful player. I know what adds to our group, and now it’s my responsibility to go there and do that. I play pretty simple games – advancing pucks, compete as hard as I can and try to add an energy to our group that way.”
Stecher is expected to be paired with Darnell Nurse, a partnership that fared well when the former was previously in the lineup. Stecher started the playoffs with an injury and was tabbed after the Oilers lost Game 3 of the second round to Vegas. The Oilers had a 5-1 record with Stecher playing before he was removed for Game 5 of the Western Conference final after Mattias Ekholm returned from a lower-body injury.
Skinner is expected to play on the third line with center Adam Henrique and Trent Frederic, who projects to slide over to right wing.
These are part of wholesale changes from the start of Game 3. All three defense pairings are different, and so are three of the four forward lines. Only the second trio of Leon Draisaitl between Evander Kane and Kasperi Kapanen remains intact.
“Felt that we have a lot of good players, a lot of good players who had been in and out of the lineup,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Some players haven’t even seen any game action so far in this series. “Felt that we could use the change, have those guys come in, give us a boost.”
The Panthers find themselves in a peculiar deployment predicament with Bennett and Marchand – their two hottest shooters – both part of the second power-play unit and seeing much less ice time with the man advantage as a result.
That is, until the PP1 sputtered early in Game 3, failing to get much going during three chances in the opening 12 minutes.
That prompted Panthers head coach Paul Maurice to send out PP2 to start the fourth power play. It clicked almost immediately: Verhaeghe went bar-down to make it 2-0, skating in from the flank to Skinner’s right after taking a pass from Rodrigues in the bumper.
The PP2 unit with Verhaeghe, Rodrigues, Bennett, Marchand and Schmidt started the next two power plays Florida received in the game. Ekblad scored a power-play goal in the third period as part of the usual PP1 formation featuring Seth Jones, Matthew Tkachuk, Reinhart and Barkov.
Verhaeghe and Bennett are tied for the team lead with four power-play goals during these playoffs.
After missing Sunday's practice and being labeled a game-time decision after Monday's optional morning skate by coach Kris Knoblauch, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins did, in fact, play in Game 3.
Nugent-Hopkins started the game on his usual (at least of late) spot on the top line with McDavid and Perry. He also had the Oilers’ best chance of the first period when he missed the net on a rebound on a power play. He was mostly quiet otherwise, which probably isn’t surprising given how the Oilers fared.
Nugent-Hopkins didn’t even take the ice for a power play to start the second period as the Oilers opted to use two defenseman with Jake Walman taking his spot. The Oilers eventually scored later on that man advantage, and with Nugent-Hopkins on the ice, but that certainly was an unconventional move for them.
Overall, Nugent-Hopkins played 15:34 and spent the second half the game largely centering the second line with Connor Brown and mostly Evander Kane as the Oilers loaded up with McDavid, Perry and Leon Draisaitl on the top line.
Anton Lundell took a retaliatory penalty at the end of the first period with the Panthers up two and looking like the Oilers didn’t have a shot of a comeback in them.
That could have easily turned the momentum when Perry responded with a power-play goal at the start of the second period for his 10th career Stanley Cup Final goal to cut Florida’s deficit in half.
But for the third straight second period in the series, it was all Florida from then on. Just 80 seconds later, Reinhart scored his first goal of the series after Aleksander Barkov pressured John Klingberg off the puck.
About 4 ½ minutes after that, Bennett had a monster shift where he rocked Vasily Podkolzin and Klingberg, then beat Skinner on a breakaway after Luostarinen stole the puck from Podkolzin just inside the offensive blue line.
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After two dramatic overtime games in Edmonton to begin this series, Game 3 in South Florida was much more one-sided — and reminiscent of how the Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 series lead on the Oilers last year before having to stave off a historic Edmonton comeback. As the incomparable Pierre LeBrun put it, the style of the game was textbook Florida:
"The Panthers bullied the Oilers every which way, the nasty boys Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett both scored, and Florida tilted the ice in a way that hadn’t seemed possible in this year’s final between these two very evenly matched teams.
"It was also the least entertaining game of the series, which is the way Florida wants it. Game 3 was Panthers-style hockey, grinding down the Oilers and nullifying any notion of a track meet."
Read more from LeBrun on Game 3, including exclusive quotes from legend Chris Pronger, below.
GO FURTHER
Panthers-style hockey dominated Game 3. Is this a turning point in the Stanley Cup Final?
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Every game starts at 8 p.m. ET
Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers will air on TNT and truTV and stream on Max in the United States.
In Canada, the game will air on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports.
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Game 4 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla.
That's a 6 p.m. start in Alberta.
Welcome to our live coverage of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Oilers and the Panthers from Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla.
The first two games of this series were cardiac affairs as both required overtime. In fact, Game 2 needed two overtimes. After the dust settled, this series shifted to Florida tied one game apiece. However, in Game 3, we saw the first signs of true separation from either team as the Panthers comfortably beat the Oilers 6-1 in front of their home crowd. Sergei Bobrovsky was stellar in net while Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart each contributed two points.
Will the Oilers respond in Game 3? Can the Panthers take a commanding 3-1 series lead?
Stay tuned…
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