The Florida Panthers are one win away from winning the Stanley Cup in back-to-back years. Thanks to an unbelievable performance from Brad Marchand, the Panthers cruised to a 5-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 on Saturday night.
Following some exhilarating pregame festivities, it felt like Rogers Place was ready to explode. Instead, the arena was silent for much of the night, which belonged to Marchand.
Less than 10 minutes into the first period, Marchand got things started for Florida when he beat Vasily Podkolzin off the center-ice draw and made a bee line to the loose puck. He caught Mattias Ekholm flat-footed, danced around him and finished the play with a perfect shot.
Two periods later, with the Panthers protecting a 2-0 lead, Marchand executed almost the exact same play. He got a great jump off the face-off and pressured Jake Walman into a bad cross-ice pass that went to Eetu Luostarinen.
Unfortunately for Walman, that was not the end of his role in the play. Luostarinen chipped the puck ahead to Marchand, who stepped around Walman and snuck a shot through the five hole of Calvin Pickard.
That tally was Marchand’s 10th of the playoffs and sixth of the Stanley Cup Final. Marchand joins the legendary Mario Lemieux as the only two players of the modern era to score five or more goals in two different Stanley Cup Final appearances.
Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart also found the back of the net for the Panthers, and Eetu Luostarinen iced the win with an empty-net tally.
Defensively, Florida smothered Edmonton for almost the entire 60 minutes. The only exception was when Connor McDavid got loose for his first in the series with 7:24 gone in the third. He put a nice move on Sergei Bobrovsky, but it was little solace for the Oilers or the fans in Edmonton.
Even Leon Draisaitl, who is never afraid to pull the trigger from anywhere on the ice, finished the game with just two shots on goal. Florida’s defense, particularly Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad, made life exceedingly difficult on Draisaitl.
The Panthers will now go back to Sunrise one win away from winning their second straight Stanley Cup. Game 6 is Tuesday night in Sunrise.
All hail the Rat King
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate what Brad Marchand has done at the age of 37. Not only did he leave the only franchise he’s ever known at the trade deadline, but now he’s in the Stanley Cup Final making some of the best players in the world look foolish.
On each of his goals, Marchand flexed his hockey IQ and finesse. He jumped the face-off, aggressively pressured the puck and finished the play with some deft stick work. Very few players, regardless of age, could replicate Marchand’s Game 5 performance.
Marchand is now the first player since Wayne Gretzky to score six goals in a Stanley Cup Final, and he’s one goal away from tying Gretzky and Mike Bossy for the most Final goals ever in the modern era. I’m not even sure the Panthers thought they were going to get this level of play out of Marchand when they acquired him right under the wire at the trade deadline.
It’s not a stretch to say this may be the best hockey Marchand has ever played. It’s certainly among the best stretches of his career, including his five-goal performance in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, when Marchand led the Boston Bruins to a Game 7 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Oilers’ offense vanishes
While Marchand was having a blast, the Oilers were having a miserable time in the offensive zone. The final numbers are bad, but even they don’t show you exactly how anemic this Edmonton offense was. Take a look under the hood at five-on-five, and it gets a lot scarier.
With both teams at full strength, the Oilers mustered only three high-danger scoring chances the entire game, according to Natural Stat Trick. Mattias Ekholm, a shutdown defenseman, led the team in shots with four. The only other player with multiple five-on-five shots was Connor McDavid with two. The Oilers didn’t even generate a full expected goal in almost 50 minutes at five-on-five, finishing with 0.94.
Edmonton looked allergic to the middle of the ice, and while that is a testament to Florida’s defense, it’s not like the Oilers haven’t gotten there before in this series. If they are going to extend this series, the Oilers will have to get in on the forecheck and make life much harder for the Panthers in their own zone.
Redemption for Forsling, Ekblad
After Game 1, I highlighted Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad in my takeaways because I felt they had some devastating lapses. To no one’s surprise, the duo has bounced back, and they were almost flawless in Game 5.
With Ekblad and Forsling on the ice together at five-on-five, Florida outscored Edmonton 3-1 and controlled 52.1% of the expected goals. They posted those numbers while drawing the Leon Draisaitl matchup more than anyone, and only Seth Jones saw more of Connor McDavid. Forsling and Ekblad were on a different level in Game 5, and they were a big reason why that Oilers’ offense did a disappearing act.
This now marks the second time in the last three games that Forsling and Ekblad have all but eliminated Edmonton’s two superstars. Something tells me McDavid and Draisaitl will get pretty familiar with those two again in Game 6.
