Leon Draisaitl (29) of the Edmonton Oilers, is chased by Niko Mikkola (77) of the Florida Panthers in game five of the Stanley Cup final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on June 14, 2025. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia If all the first periods in this Stanley Cup Final were pieced together to make a bad horror movie Panther Mauling I: Bleeding The Oil Edmonton would be the clueless teenagers at summer camp and Florida would be the guy in the mask waiting to plunge home another machete.
Saturdays win in Game 5 makes it three swipes down, one to go.
In what must seem like a recurring nightmare, the Panthers once again had the Oilers bleeding badly by the first intermission.
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This time it was 2-0 and, if youre scoring at home, that makes 11 first-period goals by the Panthers in this series (Edmonton has four, three of them in one game) and four-straight games in which Florida scored first.
Weve come out flat now most of the series, said defenceman Mattias Ekholm, after Saturdays 5-2 defeat at Rogers Place pushed Edmonton to the brink of an outcome too painful to even comprehend: Losing a second-straight Cup Final to Matthew Tkachuk and the Panthers.
Theyre a good team for a reason and theyve come out early and shown that in the games. We have to find a way to be better than that at the start. We have to make sure we bear down early in games and it hasnt happened for us. Thats on us, we have to be better.
And while the Oilers are one of the NHLs great comeback teams, you cant spot the Panthers two or three goals every game and expect to get away with it.
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It cost them Game 5 and its quite possibly costing them a Stanley Cup.
If we were coming in here and trying to start slow I would have an answer for you but thats not the case, said defenceman Darnell Nurse, admitting Florida is a handful. They have a job out there, to make it harder for us to get to our game, but we can all agree in our room that we need to be better.
So now the Oilers are trailing 3-2, heading back to Florida, and on the verge of having to spend another long summer mourning the loss of a championship that was close enough to touch.
Getting behind is tough, you can only do it so many times against this team, said head coach Kris Knoblauch, whose club just used up the last of its three lives. Knowing that were in a difficult situation, that we have to win our last two games, were confident we can do that. Weve been through difficult situations before and this is just another one well overcome.
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After weak and tepid starts to Games 3 and 4, in which they were down 2-0 and 3-0, the Oilers came out with some jump to begin Game 5, but it didnt last. Close calls from Connor Brown and Connor McDavid very nearly put Edmonton in front in the first three minutes, but after that they settled into their usual opening 20 sag.
They had just three shots on net, the last of which came from Darnell Nurse at 8:50.
The Panthers, meanwhile, took their usual lead. Brad Marchand juked Mattias Ekholm off a centre-ice faceoff and walked down main street to score on a breakaway at 9:12 and Sam Bennett made it 2-0 at 18:06.
Florida looked faster, hungrier and better.
There was some back and forth in the third period Marchand made it 3-0, McDavid closed it to 3-1, Florida went up 4-1, Corey Perry closed it to 4-2 with just over three minutes left but a Florida empty-netter turned out the lights.
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The pushback was too little, too late.
Were a team that can always find a way to come back but its not always going to happen, said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Sometimes, when you put yourself behind, youre not going to find ways to get back. We have to figure out our first period here and well look to correct that in Game 6.
Trailing 3-2 in the Stanley Cup Final pretty much guarantees theyll have that urgency from the drop of the puck, right?
Yes, absolutely, said Nugent-Hopkins. Its gotta be. We talk about our backs against the wall, this is the ultimate. Well make sure that were ready to go.
We have confidence in ourselves that we can get the job done. Its easier said than done, you have to go out and do it, but we look forward to that.
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