
Edmonton scored more goals in Game 4 than they had the previous three games combined
The Florida Panthers are going to have to wait a little longer if they want to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Playing in front of a packed, wild and crazy Rogers Place, the Edmonton Oilers sent their fans home happy and picked up their first win of the Stanley Cup Final, defeating the Panthers 8-1 in Game 4 on Saturday night.
In the game’s opening minutes, Florida was given the first power play of the night after a tripping call on Darnell Nurse.
The hit was reviewed for a five-minute major as Nurse took out the leg of Sam Bennett, who had to crawl off the ice and went straight to the Panthers locker room afterwards.
Edmonton is who capitalized on the penalty with Mattias Janmark scoring after a nice play by Connor Brown to deke around Sergei Bobrovsky and get the puck back to the front of the net.
Fortunately for the Panthers, Bennett returned to the ice right after the Oilers goal.
The home team made it 2-0 at the 7:48 mark when Adam Henrique deflected a pass from Janmark over Bobrovsky’s glove from the top of the crease.
Less than five minutes later the Panthers got on the board thanks to a nice deflection by Vladimir Tarasenko off a Gus Forsling point shot.
While Florida was starting to control play a bit more, the Oilers picked up another rush goal, this time from Dylan Holloway off a nice fed from Leon Draisaitl, to go up 3-1 with 5:12 to go in the period.
Connor McDavid gave the Oilers a 4-1 lead 1:13 into the second period, capitalizing on Aaron Ekblad being caught out of position after a big hit on Warren Foegele.
A Nurse goal at the 4:59 mark, his first of the playoffs, would be the end of Bobrovsky’s night after allowing five goals on 17 shots.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ first goal of the final came with Edmonton on a 5-on-3 power play late in the period, giving the Oilers a five-goal lead.
Trailing 6-1 after 40 minutes, the third period couldn’t go by fast enough for the Panthers.
They received a trio of power play opportunities during the final frame but came up empty in each.
After the third one expired, Holloway scored his second of the game off a nice feed from McDavid to hit the extra point for the Oilers.
They weren’t quite done though, as Ryan McLeod blasted a shot over Stolarz glove with 3:19 left to make it an 8-1 score.
Curious to see how the Panthers respond to this kind of a butt kicking.
On to Game 5 and another shot at winning the Stanley Cup.
Here are some thoughts and observations from Game 4 in Edmonton:
Tarasenko has goals in back-to-back games and three of his last five outings overall.
After starting the series 0-for-13 on the power play, Edmonton finally broke through on Nugent-Hopkins 5-on-3 goal during the second period.
Florida went 0-for-4 on the power play Thursday and are now 1-for-13 in the series.
Forsling is up to 13 points during the postseason. He’s logged assists in each of his past two games.
Bobrovsky hadn’t given up three or more goals in consecutive games since Games 3 and 4 of the opening round against Tampa Bay.
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