EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers don’t feel they deserve to be down three games to none in the Stanley Cup finals.
They may well be right. Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has been exceptional, the Panthers’ opportunistic scoring has maximized every mistake Edmonton has made, and the Oilers’ big guns have yet to find a way to finish their chances.
Deserved or not, they could become the first team since the 1998 Washington Capitals to be swept in the Stanley Cup finals unless they can turn things around in Saturday’s Game 4 on their home ice.
“Everything that’s on my mind right now is how we win a game [Saturday],” said defenseman Mattias Ekholm, who lost in the 2017 finals with Nashville before being traded to Edmonton in 2023. “Obviously, I can bring out all the clichés that it’s one game at a time and all that good stuff. But that’s really what it is. At this point, I feel like through three games, have we deserved to win a game? I think so. I think we’ve played two, at least, pretty good games. It hasn’t happened for us, but still, it’s four games. That’s all it is.”
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The Oilers had a short practice at Rogers Place on Friday. The Panthers took the day off the ice and will have a full team skate Saturday morning. Hockey practices are sometimes raucous affairs, with players yelling across the ice to one another, celebrating when they score and banging their sticks on the boards, but Friday’s skate for Edmonton was a quiet one.
Neither Evander Kane, who missed Game 3 with an undisclosed injury, nor Darnell Nurse, who was injured in Game 2 but returned for Game 3, skated Friday. The injuries are among the issues for the Oilers, whose depth has been challenged in these finals.
Another problem has been an inability to finish scoring chances. Edmonton Coach Kris Knoblauch has repeatedly brought up that the expected goals statistics favor his Oilers, and he isn’t wrong. Per Natural Stat Trick, Edmonton has generated 5.68 expected goals at five-on-five to Florida’s 4.54, but in actual goals, the Panthers have outscored the Oilers 11-4.
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“The second game wasn’t very good for us. First and third, we liked our game,” Knoblauch said. “If you look at our series against L.A., Vancouver, Dallas, we’re actually getting more chances for and against, in our favor. … It’s just being able to put the puck in the net, which is obviously a very big part of the game. That’s a big part.”
While Edmonton had a quiet skate Friday, the Panthers were businesslike but loose as they met with the media. Nothing about their presentation suggested that they were at all consumed with the idea that in 36 hours, they could be hoisting the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
After losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in last year’s finals, Florida is in a much different position this time around. The Panthers’ goal, of course, was to be back on this stage, but at no point throughout the season, Coach Paul Maurice said, was a return to the Stanley Cup finals overly emphasized.
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“I’ve seen that idea, right? One team had a clock in their room [with] basically the number of hours until the Stanley Cup finals start,” Maurice said. “They have it at training camp, and then there are all these ideas of the goal, keeping your eye on the prize, all that kind of stuff. But that would be the exact opposite of me saying, handle your day. Or I guess you could kind of split it and say, if you handle your day, that’s where you’re going.
“But we specifically stay out of the future, that idea. We work very hard at just handling our day.”
Matthew Tkachuk, who broke his sternum in last year’s finals and didn’t play in the decisive Game 5, described the Panthers as “really calm, kind of chilled and relaxed” Friday morning. The statistics on teams who have a 3-0 series lead are deeply in the Panthers’ favor on their quest to win the Stanley Cup, but Florida is paying little attention to its odds.
“We don’t look at that stuff,” Tkachuk said. “You guys do. I’m sure a lot of other people do, but we don’t. We come into today, have a nice recovery day, do what you can to get ready to go for tomorrow. And tomorrow, we’ve done such a good job of having that one-game, simple mind-set. Win your first period, win your first few shifts. That’s all you have to do.”
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