After a pair of incredibly close games to start the Stanley Cup Final, Game 3 was anything but. The Panthers hammered the Oilers from start to finish in a 6-1 win, and they now have a 2-1 lead in the series.
It took Florida all of 56 seconds to get on the board on Monday night. Anton Lundell beat Leon Draisaitl off a face-off and created some chaos in front of the net before finding Brad Marchand for his fourth goal of the series. The play was a good indication of how the game was about to go for Edmonton.
From there, the Panthers outclassed the Oilers in every aspect of the game, beating them physically and mentally for 60 minutes.
Perhaps the best example of that was Sam Bennett's league-leading 14th goal of the playoffs in the second period. With the Panthers up 3-1, Bennett knocked Vasily Podkolzin into next week before deking Stuart Skinner out of his pads on the breakaway to give the Cats a three-goal lead.
The most head-scratching part of this game for the Oilers was their complete lack of discipline. In the first period alone, they took three careless offensive zone penalties and a too many men penalty. They were lucky Florida only made them pay on one of them.
Edmonton's frustration only became more visible as the game progressed. Jake Walman was throwing punches and squirting the Panthers' bench with his water bottle.
Stuart Skinner took an unforced delay of game penalty when he flung a puck over the glass early in the third period. Evander Kane was given a minor penalty and a game misconduct for whacking Carter Verhaeghe in the face while he was on the ice.
In total, the Oilers took 85 penalty minutes. All of that while Leon Draisaitl fired zero shots on goal and Connor McDavid was as invisible as he's been for most of the postseason. Edmonton showed some fight, but not where it mattered.
The Panthers have proven they can get under the skin of the Oilers in a major way, and Edmonton has to find some degree of composure in Game 4 on Thursday, or else this series will get away from them quickly.
Panthers' depth takes over
Coming into this series, it was fairly evident that the Panthers had a big edge in the depth department. They have at least three lines that can produce on any given night, and the already top-heavy Oilers are without Zach Hyman.
In Games 1 and 2, that depth edge was largely negated because Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were superhuman. On Monday, however, those two were much quieter, which allowed the Panthers' depth to shine. Six different Panthers found the back of the net, and 12 different players recorded at least one point. That's just what happens when players like Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand are on the third line.
The Oilers simply can't match that level of speed and skill in their bottom-six. Mattias Janmark, Viktor Arvidsson, Adam Henrique and Kasperi Kapanen just can't be trusted in high-leverage situations.
Check oil light is on
Someone needs to check on the Oilers after this one because it's probably their worst game of the postseason, and the worst part was not the numbers on the scoreboard. Edmonton brought zero composure to Sunrise, and it cost the team on multiple occasions throughout the game.
The Oilers started the game by taking three offensive zone penalties and a bench minor in the first period alone. As the game wore on, they kept coming apart at the seams. The number of bad penalties and unforced errors grew exponentially, and by the time the final buzzer sounded, the Oilers had taken 85 penalty minutes. That's the third-most penalty minutes in Stanley Cup Final history and the most since 1996.
Edmonton may have been trying to show some degree of fight with its antics after the whistle, but that misses a key point about this matchup. The Panthers love this kind of game! They relish nothing more than digging in underneath their opponents' skin. The more the Oilers flailed, the happier the Panthers were.
Defensive clinic by Florida
While the Oilers were taking plenty of shots at the Panthers between the whistles, they were not playing much actual hockey. Part of that is Edmonton's own fault (it's hard to find a groove when killing 11 penalties), but Florida also deserves a lot of credit.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Panthers allowed all of two high-danger scoring chances and 0.83 expected goals at five-on-five. On top of that, McDavid and Draisaitl were pretty much invisible. McDavid had just two shots on goal, and Draisaitl had zero. After that duo found a lot of clear ice in Games 1 and 2, the Panthers took that away with authority in Game 3.
McDavid and Draisaitl have looked superhuman for much of the playoffs, but they almost looked mortal on Monday night. I have to expect that those two will bounce back on Thursday, but if they get locked down again, the Oilers will be going back to Edmonton on the brink of elimination.
