Led by Connor McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers have maintained their title chances in the NHL final series. Away at the Florida Panthers, Edmonton won game five of the series 5:3.
Ice hockey star Leon Draisaitl’s hopes of winning his first title with the Edmonton Oilers live on. The Oilers won game five of the final series for the Stanley Cup against the Florida Panthers 5:3 (1:0, 3:2, 1:1). Edmonton has thus reduced the deficit to 2:3 in the NHL finals and can now equalize on Friday night at Rogers Place before the showdown in Florida three days later.
“I know a lot of people have written us off,” said Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch after the game. The team has a strong belief and the season has been written off several times, “and here we are in June, still playing hockey. We’re coming back to Edmonton and there’s a lot to smile about.”
Player of the game was Connor McDavid, who was directly involved in four of the Oilers’ goals. First, Connor Brown gave the Canadian team the lead in the first period while they were shorthanded (6th). In the middle period, goal scorer Zach Hyman (22nd) with his 15th playoff goal and McDavid (25th) extended the lead.
Matthew Tkachuk (27th) was able to shorten the gap for Florida, which has a great chance of winning the first title in franchise history. But Corey Perry (32nd) restored the three-goal gap after great preparatory work by McDavid. Just 14 seconds later, Evan Rodrigues scored for the Panthers.
McDavid follows in Gretzky’s footsteps
In the final period, the Oilers defended their lead after Oilver Ekman-Larsson scored a goal (45th minute) and had several chances to decide the game in the final minute after Florida took their goalie Sergei Bobrowski off the ice. McDavid managed to do so with his second goal of the evening.
“It was a great performance from everyone,” said McDavid, “the boys put in a lot of effort, we had our backs against the wall and found a way.”
The Canadian has now been involved in goals 42 times in this year’s playoffs, only Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux have ever scored more. Draisaitl, on the other hand, did not have a goal involvement and will only play a minor role offensively in the finals after his impressive series at the start of the playoffs with 13 games in a row with at least one point scored. Both top stars now have at least one more game to play.
Source: Stern
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