SUNRISE, Fla. — This is exactly what they want.
The Florida Panthers suck you into the nonsense, then beat you up on the scoreboard.
They goad you and check you. They snap chirps and snap necks back. Then they beat you up on the scoreboard and stick out their tongues on the way off the ice.
“If you have to take a punch in the face, take a punch in the face,” says a happy Matthew Tkachuk, now two wins from two Stanley Cups.
Game 3 was Florida Panthers Identity Night in Sunrise, and the Edmonton Oilers — still operating on Mountain Time, apparently, after two days to adjust their clocks — got sucked in hook, line, and stinker.
The Cats snatched a super-early lead and crushed their visitors with waves of depth scoring. They drew more penalties than they took and dressed the better goaltender. Heck, by the time the plastic rats rained, they had even posted their new favourite blowout score: 6-1.
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With the Stanley Cup within reach, the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers are set to battle once again for hockey’s ultimate prize. Watch every game of the Final on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
Most critical here, though, is that the most annoying, persistent, and best team in hockey (until proven otherwise) is crawling under the skin of an Oilers group branding itself as matured.
“You look at some of the calls and whatnot, obviously some of them are frustrating. They seem to get away with it more than we do,” says Evander Kane, who has piled up 18 PIMs in the series.
“It’s tough to find the line. They’re doing just as much stuff as we are.”
For sure. But whether it’s crashing creases, embellishing for whistles, or taking advantage of the ridiculous number of power plays in these games, the Panthers are simply doing the “stuff” better.
That line Kane speaks of?
The Panthers strut around like they invented the thing, and they walk it artfully, like Philippe Petit.
How frustrating must it be, facing the champs when they dictate the heavyweight style and tempo of hockey?
“I don’t know. I haven’t played against the Panthers,” captain Aleksander Barkov says, with a grin. “It’s fun to play. It’s hard to play. We were good today.
“We’re ready for anything.”
The Oilers were the opposite of ready Monday.
And as the action devolved into game misconducts, cheap shots and scrums upon scrums, as Jake Walman sprayed water at home bench and giddy fourth-liner Jonah Gadjovich stuck out his tongue after getting a few good licks on Darnell Nurse and a standing ovation from the home crowd, as starter Stuart Skinner got the mercy yank, the Oilers slipped from unprepared to unglued.
“Definitely the third period is an unravelling,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “That game was out of hand. I don’t think we would have acted or played like that had the game been a one-goal or two-goal game.”
No game, we’d counter, should be out of hand for the playoffs’ best comeback squad. But the Oilers gave up on playing hockey and began playing for revenge.
So, it was interesting that Florida coach Paul Maurice referenced the Canucks’ recent wild, three-goal, last-minute comeback against the Stars post-game. The Oilers do possess the talent for that level of offensive magic, but they were too preoccupied feeling sour to unleash their power.
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The unravelling is taking hold off the ice as well.
The Oilers are bitter about Sam Bennett’s accidentally-on-purpose tumbling onto Skinner and the missed too-many-men infraction in Game 2’s loss.
“The referees did an outstanding job tonight. They’re even caught the too many men penalty in the first period,” said Knoblauch, disguising criticism as compliment.
“They caught us there. I just wish they had been calling the game in Game 2 in overtime.”
The Panthers drew 11(!) power plays Monday and cashed in on three of them, while the sides combined for a whopping 140 penalty minutes — the most in any Cup Final contest since 1986.
Coincidentally, ’86 was also the year Paul Simon dropped “You Can Call Me Al,” and it was the songwriter’s jaunty, feel-good banger that blasted from the victorious Panthers dressing room after they grabbed a 2-1 series lead.
Their way. The throwback way. The smile-while-the-other-guys-are-fuming way.
“Feels good,” Carter Verhaeghe says. “I feel like our whole group was just kind of waiting for the post-season. Kind of gets a little bit of a juice and excitement.”
As the penalties and complaints piled, and the night spiralled according to plan, the rabid Panthers fans — still thirsty after getting quenched one June ago — broke into a greedy chant: “We! Want! The! Cup!”
A couple more that look anything like this, and they’ll get what they’re asking for.
Fox’s Fast Five
• $am Bennett continues his Conn Smythe campaign, extending his playoff goal streak to four games — a Panthers record.
The most valuable centreman poised to hit the open market made no doubt on his post-season-leading 14th goal, putting a beautiful breakaway move on Skinner. Ca-ching.
“Helluva finish,” Verhaeghe says. “He’s got such good hands in tight, and that’s what he does. He’s big in playoffs.”
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To think, Bennett went five straight regular seasons — from 2016-17 through 2020-21 — without reaching 14 goals.
• At 37, Brad Marchand becomes the oldest player to score in the first three games of a Stanley Cup Final.
He boots Frank Mahovlich out of the record book; Mahovlich accomplished the feat at age 35 with the Cup-winning Canadiens in 1973.
• Edmonton’s 85 penalty minutes are the third-most committed by a single team in a Cup Final game and the most outside of May 22, 1986, when the Canadiens (90) and Flames (86) went berserk.
• Aaron Ekblad goes old school for this open-ice hip check on the fastest man on skates:
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• Wild stat: The Panthers have 15 goals this series, and Barkov is still searching for his first point.
“Well, I always can be better,” Barkov says. “But all I’m thinking about is winning the game.”
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