FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Things are pretty simple now for the Florida Panthers: Win Monday and they're Stanley Cup champions. Lose Monday and become the first team since World War II to lose a 3-0 lead in a hockey title series.
Either way, the consequences will be everlasting.
“It's probably the biggest NHL game we've had in years,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said.
He's not wrong. The 2,464th game in franchise history is arguably the biggest game the Panthers have ever played. Win and you'll be immortal. Lose and you'll be in disgrace. Fourth and final chance The Panthers' final Stanley Cup game of the season will be Monday night in Florida, when they host the Edmonton Oilers.
Florida won the first three games and Edmonton won the next three – not since 1945 has a Stanley Cup Final followed such a trajectory. Since 1942, no team has won a title series after trailing 3-0. It's a fate Florida is trying to avoid.
“It doesn't matter how it went or how you paint it,” Tkachuk said. “They lost their first three games. We lost our next three games. It's the same now. It doesn't matter what happened to get us here. … This whole season just comes down to one game. And it's at home. How can we not be more excited? This is just unbelievable. This is an incredible opportunity.”
The first three games, all played in Florida, saw the Panthers outscore the Oilers 11-4, get more hits and blocked shots, and look destined to win.
In their final three games, all against Edmonton, the Oilers outshot the Panthers 18-5 and scored on 22.5 percent of their shots, video-game numbers, while blocking nearly double Florida's shots over that same span.
The score is 3-3. Game 7 begins.
“You can look at all the stories, you can analyze everything and say how we're matched up, they're on the upswing, we're on the upswing, it doesn't matter,” Panthers forward Kyle Okposo said. “It's the next game. The next game will tell you what you're good at.”
Never mind the rollercoaster ride the team has been through to get there: this is the 18th Game 7 in Stanley Cup Final history. The home team has won 12 of the last 17 (a good sign for the Panthers), but the away team has won all three of the last three (a good sign for the Oilers).
Panthers coach Paul Maurice was asked if Game 7 could be a defining legend for himself and others, given the historical significance of potentially squandering a 3-0 series lead.
“I'll let you know at the end,” Maurice said.
Maurice has been asked a variety of questions throughout this series about winning a Cup (something people try not to talk about until they actually win it) and the pressure you feel when you're up 3-0 or you miss a chance to win it like in Games 4, 5 and 6. He's a smart guy, and he understands why those questions are asked.
But as he sidled up to players during practice Sunday for brief conversations, it wasn't about the bigger-picture implications but rather to get a feel for a team in which he still has full confidence, especially heading into Game 7.
“There's a bigger contextual story that means nothing to me right now, but means everything to you,” Maurice said. “That's the story you have to write. Really, it's the context that makes this whole thing so great. Nobody's ever played on a backdoor rink in Canada and scored the winning goal in overtime in the third game of the qualifying round. There's always one game that gets you excited, and that's the context of this game, and we're going to live in that context.”
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov (either he or Oilers captain Connor McDavid will receive the Stanley Cup from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Monday night) agrees.
This is what it's all about: championship or bust. The Panthers' story will be decided by Monday night.
“I was always a kid playing by myself, whether I was outside or at home, thinking, 'This could be Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, maybe even overtime,'” Barkov said. “When I think back to that moment, I have a lot of memories like that, and now, it's definitely going to be a reality tomorrow. It's exciting. It's the most exciting time to be a hockey player.”
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AP NHL Playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
