EDMONTON — Let’s be honest: Stanley Cup celebrations are lame on the road anyway and now the Florida Panthers will have the opportunity to party in front of their own rat-tossing fans wearing red from head-to-toe Tuesday night.
This, of course, is if they’re able to somehow brush off what matched their most lopsided playoff loss in franchise history and turn off the ignition to a suddenly revved-up Connor McDavid and several other Oilers who broke out during Saturday’s stunning 8-1 butt-kicking in Alberta’s capital city.
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For a team that has been the best defensive team in the NHL all season long and one that has shut down opposing stars in the first three rounds and first three games of the Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers better hope Saturday’s performance was just an aberration and perhaps simply the result of players distracted with the Stanley Cup in the building ready to be polished and paraded around enemy ice.
Instead, the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy stayed tucked away in their respective trunks and the families of Panthers staff and players chartered back to South Florida as quietly and as unassumingly as they arrived hours earlier.
The Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy are leaving the arena as Edmonton makes it 8-1 pic.twitter.com/yY2beIXAwx
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) June 16, 2024
“It’s the first opportunity that we’ve had as a franchise really to feel the two (past) days — the excitement of it, the emotions of it,” coach Paul Maurice said of the prospect of winning hockey’s most cherished trophy. “We’ll learn how to channel it. That’s all part of this process.”
The Panthers have two days to do just that, but Saturday’s loss wasn’t just about a bunch of players perhaps getting ahead of themselves and envisioning whether the parade will go down the Intracoastal or A1A or wondering how many diamonds their rings will hold.
McDavid, who leads the NHL with 38 points, awoke with 4 points and broke Wayne Gretzky’s Stanley Cup playoff assists record with 32. Dylan Holloway scored twice and had 3 points. Five others scored goals, Stuart Skinner was excellent with 32 saves and the Panthers’ best players were outskated dramatically up and down the ice all game long.
“They were flying all over the ice,” said Matthew Tkachuk, who has one goal in his past 15 games and was minus-3 along with linemates Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett. “So you have to give a ton of credit to them. They played an unbelievable game. That’s kind of the biggest thing they’re known for is their rush game and their skill and making plays.
“Everybody, lines one through four and all six D, they were making some crazy great plays. They looked awesome tonight and we didn’t have an answer.”
THE EXTRA POINT IS GOOD ‼️ pic.twitter.com/4khKRyCt7c
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 16, 2024
Sergei Bobrovsky, who carried a .953 save percentage this series into the game, was chased after allowing five goals on 16 shots. Anthony Stolarz, who hadn’t played all playoffs, came in and gave up another three as the Panthers sustained their most one-sided loss since an 8-1 trouncing to Colorado in the 1996 Stanley Cup Final.
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“It’s all about us to manage the losses,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “Obviously it only counts as one win. It doesn’t matter how much you lose 2-1 or 8-1. So just obviously we need to bounce back. We need to recover now and think about the next one.”
Barkov said the Panthers were outworked, and for a team that is usually fundamentally strong and structured all over the ice, it was surprising to see how many rush chances the Panthers gave up and then how poorly they played them.
Rush defense is usually one of their biggest strengths, yet on this night, some of their worst players were normally reliable guys like Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling and the Bennett line.
They gave up a short-handed goal to Mattias Janmark to open the game right after Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart hit iron a second apart. Then Janmark got ahead of the play and set up Adam Henrique’s eventual winner with a goalmouth pass.
Vladimir Tarasenko cut the deficit to 2-1, but then Skinner ended any chance of the Panthers tying the game with a highway robbery on Verhaeghe. Skinner received accolades from everyone after the game for that save because who knows what would happen if the Panthers tied the score in an elimination game.
Maurice wasn’t about to go there.
“I would suggest that usually the end result is just,” Maurice said. “We couldn’t stop the rush.”
The mantra inside the Panthers’ room is always, “we either win or we learn.”
Maurice said if they’re lucky enough they do both. But that definitely didn’t happen Saturday as their six-game win streak imploded. The good news if you’re a Panthers fan is the team has two days to recover and get ready for their latest chance to unlock the black trunk that holds the Stanley Cup.
“They’re good players and they scored and they should get confidence from that,” Maurice said. “They’ll feel good. And then the puck’s gonna drop. I’m not saying they aren’t gonna feel good when the puck drops, but everything changes then. We’re gonna rally. We’ll recover, move forward, get ready.”
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In the playoffs, very seldom does momentum carry over. So chances are the Panthers will rediscover their game over the next couple of days, especially with the motivation to win this thing on home ice and avoid a return, six-hour flight to Edmonton.
One player who must be better is Tkachuk. He’s been silent all postseason long.
He wasn’t about to dissect his playoffs after this loss, but he was not pleased with his game at least in this specific loss.
“Could definitely be better, but at the end of the day, we’re up 3-1, we’re going back home,” he said. “I thought that in the first two, I did a lot of good things and continued that into Game 3, but definitely did not like it tonight at all.
“Myself and the rest of the guys will come back (Sunday) and new day and it’s a chance to win at home in Game 5.”
And McDavid was not getting ahead of himself.
“It’s just one win. That’s all it is,” he said. “Doesn’t matter if you score eight or you score one — it’s just one win. We’re gonna go to Florida and do a job and try to come back to Alberta.”
(Photo: Curtis Comeau / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Michael Russo is a senior writer covering the Minnesota Wild and the National Hockey League for The Athletic. He has covered the NHL since 1995 (Florida Panthers) and the Wild since 2005, previously for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Michael is a four-time Minnesota Sportswriter of the Year and in 2017 was named the inaugural Red Fisher Award winner as best beat writer in the NHL. Michael can be seen on Bally Sports North and the NHL Network; and heard on KFAN (100.3 FM) and podcasts "Worst Seats in the House" (talknorth.com), "The Athletic Hockey Show" on Wednesdays and "Straight From the Source" (The Athletic). Follow Michael on Twitter @RussoHockey
