Panthers must lean on ability to rebound heading into Game 7 against Edmonton
Both Florida and the Oilers have enjoyed three-game winning streaks during the Stanley Cup Final
The Florida Panthers have prided themselves on being a team that can bounce back quickly.
Over the past couple seasons, and especially the past year, the Panthers have done well at not letting adversity impact their progress toward the collective goal that they now find themselves one win away from.
Well, to be fair, they’ve been one win away from that particular achievement for about as long as a team could be.
Now Florida has one last chance to claim the Stanley Cup, or risk going down in hockey history as the first time in 80 years to come this close and end up with nothing.
“We’ve had three match points,” said Panthers captain Sasha Barkov. “But Game 7 is everyone's dream and that's what we need to be ready for.”
“It’s obviously a tough one to take,” added forward Carter Verhaeghe. “But we’re excited to go home and play Game 7 in front of our fans. It’s going to be a good one.”
The mood around the team was understandably dreary following Friday’s Game 6 loss in Edmonton.
They’re allowed.
But if the Cats are going to find a way out of their current funk and back onto the doorstep uof ultimate hockey glory, the process needs to have already started.
“We talked about tonight how we'll handle tonight,” Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said in the moments following Game 6. “I think you have the opportunity to meet with your people five more times before the next game. We'll start building that out. It didn't happen after (Game 6).”
Moving forward is key.
The scores over the past three loses may seem a bit lop-sided, but two of those games were within striking distance for Florida well into the third period.
“We're not really thinking about that,” Verhaeghe said of the defeats. “I think we're a confident group. They’re here for a reason and we're here for a reason. It’s the Stanley Cup Final, they're a really good team and it's for us to come back and respond next game.”
Following the 8-1 shellacking that Florida endured in Game 4, the past couple games have been more closely contested.
The Cats biggest potential momentum shift on Friday was thwarted by a successful offside review by Edmonton on an extremely close call at the Oilers’ blueline.
It proved to be a big kick in the gut as Florida was attempting to mount a comeback.
“You’re looking for a jumpstart at that point,” Maurice said. “The shots are 11-2 (Edmonton) in the first period, so we need something to go. I think they ended up 11-4 (Florida) in the second period, and they scored on two of them. (The goal) would have been a spark for us, for sure. His next goal was, I thought we had a little bit of juice there after that, but you know, it was it was unfortunate that it was called.”
None of that matters now, though.
The past is the past.
Florida will go into Game 7 knowing they have a chance to win one game and fix everything that has gone wrong over the past couple weeks.
“We know we need to play better,” said Barkov. “We’ve have good moments in the games and we’ve got to take those to the next game and obviously make the bad moments better.”
The pucks drops on the final game of the season Monday night at 8 p.m.
LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS - FLORIDA
