Brad Marchand scored his second breakaway goal of the night 8:05 into second overtime to lift the Florida Panthers to a glorious 5-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place.
After Mattias Ekholm missed a shot wide, the puck rebounded off the back boards out to Anton Lundell, who pushed the puck ahead to Marchand. The 37-year-old fended off Leon Draisaitl before going forehand-to-backhand and somehow slipped the puck through Stuart Skinner’s five-hole to end the marathon contest.
Marchand and Lundell combined on a similar play while shorthanded that resulted in the former Bruin whistling a low shot between Skinner’s pads to give the Cats a 4-3 lead 12:09 into the second period.
Rewinding the narrative back to the beginning, the Panthers struck quickly in the first period, thanks to a high-sticking penalty on Evander Kane. After Carter Verhaeghe’s long shot did not get through to Skinner, Evan Rodrigues collected and fed back to Nate Schmidt near the top of the right circle. Schmidt dished off to Sam Bennett, and despite not getting all of it, he put the puck home for his league-leading 13th goal of the playoffs at the 2:09 mark.
Kane would make up for his transgression 5:32 later when he gathered the puck just outside the blue line after Viktor Arvidsson tipped it off of Verhaeghe’s blade and then skated in on Bobrovsky and put a perfectly placed shot off the far post. Evan Bouchard drew the secondary assist by sending the puck off the boards into traffic in the center of the neutral zone.
Bouchard would give the Oilers the lead at 9:19 when he ripped the puck past a helpless Bobrovsky from the high slot after Aleksander Barkov blocked his initial shot with the teams skating 4-on-4. The assists on the Bouch Bomb went to Connor McDavid and Draisaitl.
The Panthers would put together a pretty passing play to tie the score at 11:37. After taking, then maintaining possession along the left boards, Schmidt worked his way back to the point and then moved into the middle of the ice before sliding the puck under a stick to Eetu Luostarinen. The lanky Finn took a couple strides and then crossed circle to circle to Seth Jones, who had a gaping net to shoot at.
A very iffy (to say the least) goalie interference on Bennett handed the Oilers an undeserved man-advantage and they forged back ahead a minute later when McDavid took a pass from Draisaitl and made Barkov and Aaron Ekblad look like amateurs before dishing back to the dangerous German, who joined Bennett as the only double-digit goal-scorers in the playoffs. Bouchard picked up his third point of the frame with the secondary assist.
Just a jaw-dropping piece of work by McDavid to cap the torrid span that saw the teams combine for five goals on 17 shots in just 12:37 of game play.
As they did in Game 1, following a huge early save by Bobrovsky on Bouchard, the Panthers dominated the majority of the second period, tying the tilt at 8:23. Jones sent the puck down the right side to Verhaeghe, who sent it back out to the left point for Dmitry Kulikov. With Tkachuk providing a perfect screen, Kulikov slung a rising wrister that found the back of the net by ticking off the pants off Bouchard.
With Niko Mikkola off for hooking, the Oilers got sloppy on their power play and the Panthers made them pay. After Marchand almost stripped Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Lundell completed the theft and sent his fellow killer off to the races. Marchand had enough of a head start that even McDavid couldn’t catch him and he made it look easy to give Florida the lead back.
The Panthers didn’t put much effort into trying to add another goal during the third period and Edmonton would eventually pull Skinner and send the game to overtime when Corey Perry collected a loose puck in front and sent it into the net with 18 seconds left in regulation after McDavid set up Jake Walman for a shot from the right point.
Marchand was a whisker away from ending it in the fourth period, but Skinner robbed him from in-close after Verhaeghe stole the puck from John Klingberg below the goal line. Marchand slid the rebound back under Skinner only to see it drift wide and into the post before Klingberg removed it from harm’s way.
Given another chance in the fifth, Marchand got it done for the Cats, who are coming home with a split instead of down two games to none. A huge turnaround. I didn’t like the passiveness the Panthers displayed again in third, and their effort when Skinner was pulled was lacking, but they shrugged off the potentially devasting Perry goal and showed their championship pedigree by pulling out the win.
Stanley Stuff
- An absolute tour de force from First Star Brad Marchand. In addition to his shorthanded and game-winning breakaway goals, Marchand registered a team-high seven shots and finished with a plus-three rating.
- Sam Bennett set a new NHL record by opening the scoring with his 12th road goal of the postseason, breaking the tie he was in for all of one game with Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele.
- The teams combined for 88 shots on goal. Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 42 saves to get his 13th win, while Stuart Skinner turned aside 37 for the Oilers. Bobrovsky is the first goalie to ever post back-to-back 40-save performances to begin a Stanley Cup Final.
- For the second straight game defenseman Nate Schmidt collected two assists, joining Marchand, Seth Jones and Anton Lundell as one of four Cats to finish the tilt with two points. Like Marchand, Jones and Lundell went plus-three for the Panthers.
- Evan Bouchard (1G/2A), Connor McDavid (3A) and Leon Draisaitl (1G/1A) were the multi-point Oilers in Game 2. McDavid, who already has five assists in the series, is up to an NHL-best 31 points after yet another stellar effort.
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