The Edmonton Oilers are on the brink of elimination after losing Game 3 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final by a score of 4-3 to the Florida Panthers at Rogers Place on Thursday (June 13). Florida now leads the best-of-seven series 3-0 and are just one win from the first championship in franchise history.
Aleksander Barkov, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart and Vladimir Tarasenko scored for Florida, while Philip Broberg, Warren Foegele, and Ryan McLeod replied for the Oilers. Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 32 shots, while Edmonton’s Stuart Skinner made 19 saves.
With the score tied 1-1 in the second period, Florida broke things open by scoring three goals in a span of just over six minutes. The Oilers tallied twice in the third period to cut the Panthers’ lead to one, but their rally fell just short.
Related: Panthers Hang on to Defeat Oilers, Take 3-0 Lead in Stanley Cup Final
Edmonton’s strong finish offered a glimmer of hope for the Oilers, who until the third period on Thursday hadn’t been able to get anything going against Florida and its superstar goalie.
Unfortunately for the Oilers, they are proving to be their own worst enemy, making costly mistake after costly mistake that the Panthers are pouncing on.
Oilers’ Downfall Started With Misplay by Skinner
The Oilers’ most egregious error on Thursday occurred midway through the game when Skinner mishandled the puck behind his net, leading to the Panthers’ go-ahead goal. Eetu Luostarinen gathered the puck and passed out front to Tarasenko who fired it into the net before Skinner could get back in position to make a save, giving the Panthers a 2-1 lead at 9:12 of the second period.
That goal sucked the air out of Rogers Place and seemed to rattle the Oilers. Less than five minutes later, Darnell Nurse lost the puck in front of his net to Matthew Tkachuk, who passed to Bennett, who beat Skinner at 13:57 to put Florida ahead 3-1. Barkov then scored at 15:31, giving the Panthers a three-goal lead that proved just too much for Edmonton to rebound from.
Skinner’s unfortunate misplay turned out to be particularly hard to swallow, considering the margin of victory for Florida in Game 3 ended up being just one goal.
“I think after they got that second one, they just kind of got on a roll,” Skinner said while speaking to media after the game. “We let them take the momentum and stride with it. They got two more quick ones where it was just silly mistakes that didn’t need to happen.”
This was the second consecutive game where the game turned on a brutal giveaway. With Game 2 tied 1-1 in the third period on Monday (June 10), Evan Bouchard put the puck right on the stick of Evan Rodrigues, who was in perfect position to roof it past Skinner. Florida went on to win 4-1 after scoring three unanswered goals in the final frame.
Skinner now has a goals-against average (GAA) of 3.13 and a save percentage (SV%) of .868 in the championship series, compared to a 1.33 GAA and .953 SV% from Bobrovsky. Goaltending has been a big difference in the series.
Oilers Finally Get to Bobrovsky
Going into the third period on Thursday, Edmonton had managed just two goals in the first eight periods of the series, and the Oilers hadn’t scored a non-empty net goal in the third period of any of its prior nine games.
At 6:02 of the third, Broberg got his second goal of the postseason when his shot that was heading wide hit the elbow of towering Panthers defender Niko Mikkola and bounced into the net.
Then with 5:17 remaining, McLeod got to the front of the net and deflected Brett Kulak’s point blast behind Bobrovsky. McLeod had a golden opportunity to tie the game shortly after, but was absolutely robbed by the Panthers netminder.
But while they couldn’t complete the comeback, the Oilers had to at least gain some confidence by breaking out of their offensive funk during the third period on Friday. In a span of less than 10 minutes, they doubled their scoring output for the entire series, thanks to the Oilers’ first multi-goal third period since May 18 (in Game 6 of the second round against the Vancouver Canucks).
Putting Pucks on Net Is Key to Oilers’ Success
Notably, Edmonton only had six shots on the goal in the third period, compared to 29 over the first 40 minutes. So how did they finally manage to score?
“At the end of the game in the third period we were just slinging pucks at the net,” Nurse told media following the game. “You’ve got to get traffic and bodies and the puck there, and just compete.”
Nurse’s comments, while terse, echo what many observers have been saying about the Oilers: stop being too cute and just get more pucks on net. Even Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch seemed to allude to that during his press conference prior to Game 3.
“In Kris Knoblauch’s presser this morning he talked about simplifying the game, and I thought that’s what they got down to in the third period was simplifying and throwing pucks to the net,” analyst Luke Gazdic said during Sportsnet’s post-game coverage.
“Both goals in the third period were just shots on net with a little bit of traffic … it’s basically keeping it as simple as possible: low to high, get guys in front of the net with traffic and good things happen. You’ve got to get in front of a big guy like Bobrovsky, get in his kitchen, get a little bit of traffic and they got some success on it.”
Oilers Need Much More From Their Stars
The Oilers now find themselves facing gigantic odds: Only four teams have ever come back from 3-0 to win a series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and it’s happened just once in the Final (in 1942 when the Toronto Maple Leafs came back against the Detroit Red Wings). Since joining the NHL in 1979, the Oilers have trailed a best-of-seven series 3-0 on four occasions and have lost Game 4 every time.
Edmonton’s success in the latter stages of Game 3 is something to build on, but if the Oilers have any hope of making this a series, they need their big guns to deliver.
The Oilers have three players with a 50-goal season in the last two years: Leon Draisaitl (52 goals in 2022-23), Zach Hyman (54 in 2023-24) and Connor McDavid (64 in 2022-23), and none of them have scored even once in this series. The trio’s scoring slump extends beyond the Stanley Cup Final, too: Draisaitl has two goals in his last 12 games, Hyman has one goal in his last six games, and McDavid has three goals in his last 14 games.
On Thursday, the Oilers got three goals from some very unlikely sources (coming into Game 3, Broberg, Foegele and McLeod had only scored once each this postseason). If Edmonton’s superstars are scoring at their normal rates, the Oilers win this game.
Oilers Fire Blanks on the Power Play
Edmonton’s struggles on the power play (PP) is part and parcel of the slumps its top scorers are enduring. After going 0-for-3 on Thursday, the Oilers are now 0/10 with the man advantage in this series.
The Oilers’ PP carried the team through much of the playoffs and was clicking at a league-best 37.3% coming into the Stanley Cup Final. When the PP is firing on all cylinders, they are probably going to be victorious. When it gets shut down, they’re likely not coming out on top.
Full credit goes to the Panthers, who are playing championship-winning hockey. They got steamrolled in the Stanley Cup Final last year, losing 4-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights, and seem to have grown immensely from that experience.
That may be the learning experience that the Oilers are suffering through now. It appears that Oil Country will have to wait at least another 12 months before celebrating a championship for the first time since 1990.
But this series isn’t over until Florida wins one more game. “I’m not too sure what the stats are coming back (from being down 3-0),” Skinner said following Thursday’s loss, “but if anyone can do it, it’s the Oil.”
Game 4 goes on Saturday (June 15) at Rogers Place, with puck drop scheduled for just after 6 p.m. Mountain Time. If necessary, Game 5 will take place on Tuesday (June 18) in Sunrise.
