NHL
Stanley
Cup Final
LIVE
55m ago
By Michael Russo, Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Chris Johnston
SUNRISE, Fla. — Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett, once bitter rivals, continued their tremendous postseason runs as new teammates by each scoring goals in the Florida Panthers’ completely convincing 6-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday night at Amerant Bank Arena.
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Marchand, amid a scintillating series, scored for a third straight game and became the first player in NHL history to follow an overtime goal with a goal inside the first minute of the next game.
Bennett, the leading goal scorer in these playoffs with 14, then followed suit by scoring for the third straight game in the series as the Panthers took a 2-1 series lead with Game 4 set for Thursday night.
Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart each had a goal and an assist, Aaron Ekblad and Evan Rodrigrues scored two of the Panthers’ three power-play goals on 11 opportunities and Nate Schmidt picked up his fifth assist in the series to become just the eighth defenseman since the 1967-68 expansion era to open a Final with a three-game assist streak.
Eetu Luostarinen also had two assists and Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves for his 30th win in the past two postseasons.
“I think we just stuck with our game,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “We wanted to play a full 60 minutes. We just kept doing that over and over again, and I think we got rewarded by that.”
The Panthers are the sixth team in playoff history to score five or more goals at least 11 times. This was the eighth time in the past 11 games. Paul Maurice also became the third coach in NHL history to win 1,000 regular-season and playoff games.
Corey Perry scored the lone goal for the Oilers, who saw Stuart Skinner allow five goals on 23 shots before being chased for Calvin Pickard after Ekblad’s goal 3:27 into the third period.
Things boiled over late when Trent Frederic went after Bennett, and the ruckus continued for the rest of the period.
Mayhem in Sunrise 🫣 pic.twitter.com/n1FZtOEwMG
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 10, 2025
The Oilers took 85 minutes in power plays.
“Definitely the third period’s an unraveling,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I think the game was out of hand. I don’t think we would’ve acted or played like that had the game been a one-goal or a two-goal game. I think our guys were just trying to, I don’t know, boys being boys — just trying to make investments for the next game.”
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Added Connor McDavid, “I don’t think our best has shown up all series long, but it’s coming.”
“We talked about it in the third,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “If you have to take a punch, take a punch. If you have to take a cross-check, take a cross-check. Spear, slash in the face, whatever the case is, you’ve got to take it. We just played a really smart game.”
When a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final is tied 1-1, the winner of Game 3 holds an all-time series record of 23-7 (.767). Overall in the playoffs, the winner of Game 3 in a 1-1 series goes on to claim the series 66.3 percent of the time (244-124).
Here are some takeaways from Monday night:
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 at 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.
Oilers Corey Perry
Joins Igor Larionov (2002) & Mark Recchi (2011) as the only 40+ year-olds to score in back-to-back games in the Stanley Cup Final pic.twitter.com/K1a4rK9RJV
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) June 10, 2025
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.
“The Sam Reinhart goal was the inflection point tonight,” Maurice said.
Great pressure from Barkov to kickstart this goal.
Of course, slick finish from Reinhart. pic.twitter.com/GHj3qG8084
— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) June 10, 2025
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.
“He’s been an animal the whole playoffs,” Marchand said.
MAKE A HIT ✅
POT A BEAUTY ✅
Sam Bennett is an absolute force to be reckoned with. #StanleyCup
🇺🇸: @NHL_On_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3T
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/ZDgVkrwpKE
— NHL (@NHL) June 10, 2025
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.
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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.
Marchand scored the Panthers’ two biggest goals of the playoffs with a couple of 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, his fourth of the series.
GUESS WHO 😳
BRAD MARCHAND OPENS THE SCORING IN GAME 3! #StanleyCup
🇺🇸: @NHL_On_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3T
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/FhBUVhcxFn
— NHL (@NHL) June 10, 2025
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 among 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).
No individual moment better encapsulated how physically imposing the Panthers were than the sight of 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.
Aaron Ekblad lays a big hit on Connor McDavid 💥 pic.twitter.com/FMYrn09IoI
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 10, 2025
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.
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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.
After missing Sunday’s practice and being labeled a game-time decision after Monday’s optional morning skate by 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 of 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.
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 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.
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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, Tkachuk, Reinhart and Barkov.
Verhaeghe and Bennett are tied for the team lead with four power-play goals during these playoffs.
“They want a name change,” Maurice joked. “They don’t want to be called ‘2’ anymore. We’ve got the playoff-leading goal scorer on that unit.”
(Photo of Sam Bennett: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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