Brad Marchand scored a pair of beautiful goals and the Florida Panthers handed Calvin Pickard his first loss of the playoffs with a 5-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 at Rogers Place.
Marchand caught the Oilers napping on a center ice faceoff to open the scoring 9:12 into the first period. After Anton Lundell and Leon Draisaitl took the draw, Marchand attacked the puck as was it drifting towards Mattis Ekhold. He got inside position on the flat-footed defenseman as he moved in on Pickard before beating him with a perfectly-placed high shot off the far post.
Fellow Conn Smythe contender Sam Bennett would double Florida’s lead with a 1:54 left in the frame. Bennett sent a cross-ice pass from right to left to an open Matthew Tkachuk, whose subsequent shot attempt was blocked by Jake Walman. Bennett was in position to collect the rebound and fire it by Pickard for his league-leading 15th of the postseason. The goal came 22 seconds after the Cats killed off Edmonton’s first power-play chance of the night.
A low event second period saw the Oilers out-shoot the Panthers 8-5, but fail to dent Sergei Bobrovsky as the Panthers maintained its two-goal heading to the third. Bobrovsky made a big shoulder save on Corey Perry late in the stanza to keep his clean sheet.
Marchand would top his earlier fantastic individual effort with sensational highlight-reel goal at the 5:12 mark. Eetu Luostarinen intercepted a weak point-to-point pass by Walman and sent Marchand away with speed. Marchand put a can-opener move on the backchecking Walman and completed the rush by slipping the puck between Pickard’s pads on the backhand. One for the ages!
Connor McDavid would finally notch his first of the series at 7:24 to get his team back in the game, temporarily. After a blast from Evan Bouchard missed wide, a diving McDavid, who hit the ice with Sam Reinhart, kept the play alive by knocking the puck back to Ekholm. Ekholm was able to further drop to Bouchard and he sent McDavid in alone on Bobrovsky, who was no match for the speed and skill of the world’s best player on this chance, as McDavid went easily around him before depositing the puck in the back of the net.
The delight of the Edmonton throng was short-lived (46 seconds) as an upset Reinhart converted Aleksander Barkov backhand pass from behind the net by whipping a rising shot through traffic in front from the inner left circle to restore Florida’s three-goal advantage. Barkov stole the puck from Perry to set up Reinhart, who scored for the third consecutive game.
Perry would eventually make up for his mistake by wiring a long shot past a screened Bobrovsky at 16:47 with Pickard off for an extra attacker. The assists on Perry’s tenth went to Draisailt and Darnell Nurse. The puck came all the way back to Perry near the blue line after Gustav Forsling blocked off Draisaitl’s shot/pass in front.
The Panthers shrugged off the goal and clinched it when Luostarinen sent a long, bouncing shot into the empty net from deep in his own end with 1:19 left on the clock.
Florida tied the St. Louis Blues record by delivering a near-flawless performance at Rogers Place to pick up their tenth road win of the postseason. The Panthers limited the Oilers to 21 shots and went a perfect 3-for-3 on the penalty kill. Despite the low volume of shots faced, Bobrovsky came up large. He stopped Connor Brown on breakaway 29 seconds into the game and had to make a couple of other difficult saves in the earlier going, keeping the game scoreless until Marchand struck. What more can you say about Marchand and Bennett, who became the first players on the same team to score five-plus goals in a Final since Montreal’s Yvan Cournoyer and Frank Mahovlich in 1973. One more win to go!
Stanley Stuff
- First Star Brad Marchand joined Mario Lemieux as the only players to score at least five goals twice in a Stanley Cup Final in the NHL expansion era. Marchand is up to six goals against Edmonton. The last player to score six times in a Final was Esa Tikkanen with the Oilers in 1988.
- With his first goal of the Final, Connor McDavid became the third-fastest player to reach 150 career points in the playoffs. McDavid did it in 95 games, behind only Wayne Gretzky (68 games) and the aforementioned Super Mario (86 games).
- After combining on Florida’s key second goal, Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk remain tied for the team scoring lead with 22 points. Bennett has scored in six straight road games and has amassed 13 goals and 16 points in Florida’s 13 away games.
- More Yosemite Sam. Bennett is the fourth active player to score at least 15 goals in a single postseason, joining Zach Hyman (16 last season), Alexander Ovechkin (15 in 2018) and Sidney Crosby (15 in 2009).
- Following a five-game cold spell and overcoming an injury in the Carolina series, Sam Reinhart has rounded back into fine form with three goals and three assists in the last three games. His snipe immediately after McDavid’s marker was huge.
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