SUNRISE, Fla. — It’s starting to feel like the Edmonton Oilers truly are a team of destiny.
Much like Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption,” the Oilers have gone through so much crap, yet have come through the other side clean and better for it.
A 5-3 win over the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final means they’re two victories away from completing one of the most epic comebacks in NHL history. They’re two victories away from raising their arms in the ultimate euphoric glory.
GO DEEPERHow the Oilers dragged the Stanley Cup Final back to Alberta with a Game 5 win: 5 takeaways“We’re writing the script,” winger Connor Brown said. “It starts with belief. We’re writing the story and we’re taking it in our own hands — and we’re having fun doing it.”
The massive hole the Oilers are trying to overcome in this championship round doesn’t feel insurmountable considering all they’ve pushed through this season.
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There was the 2-9-1 start that preceded winning 27 of their next 33 games. They were down three separate times in Round 2 against Vancouver and trailed heading into Game 4 of the Western Conference final.
Let’s just say this is merely the next phase.
“We learned a lesson early on in the year, and that’s to stick with it,” defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. “I’m just as hopeful as I was 0-3 as I was now 2-3.”
Overall, the Oilers felt they were the better team for the first three games against the Panthers — particularly in the opener and the third contest. They weren’t rewarded in any way, shape or form. They faced the possibility of being swept on home ice.
But scoring two goals in the third period of Game 3 has clearly turned the tide. They’ve hit the Panthers with a tsunami since then. They’ve won two straight games to make this a legitimate series.
“We’ve either had a chance to put a team away in the playoffs or been on the brink of elimination ourselves, and we’re 6-0,” Ekholm said. “That tells you something about this group and what the mentality is.”
By the time Corey Perry netted a power-play goal 11:54 into the second period on Tuesday to make it 4-1, the Oilers were on a 13-1 scoring run from that point. They had scored nine straight times, breaking a franchise record for consecutive goals in a Stanley Cup Final set by the 1984 squad.
“People have written us off and we just keep coming back and we just keep coming back,” Perry said. “When our backs are against the wall, that’s when we play our best hockey.”
Just like Game 4, it was Connor McDavid who took over the game in the second period. He had another four-point outing and, again, three of them came in the middle frame. His empty-net goal with 19 seconds remaining secured the win.
He was electric and dangerous nearly every time the puck was on his stick. The short-side goal he scored on Sergei Bobrovsky was as cheeky as it was skillful. The assist he had on Perry’s marker was outstanding.
MCDAVID ➡️ PERRY TO MAKE IT 4-1 🔥
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— The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) June 19, 2024
The eight points he’s had in the last two games established a new Stanley Cup Final record for production in elimination contests. He has 11 points in the series.
McDavid starred, but there was more to it than that.
The power play scored its first two five-on-four goals of the series. One was netted by Zach Hyman, his first marker of the final. The penalty kill was perfect once again, denying all three Panthers chances and recording a short-handed goal. Stuart Skinner made 29 saves.
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“It was a total effort from everybody,” McDavid said.
“It’s easy to talk the talk. It’s a lot harder to walk the walk,” Skinner said. “We’re proving to ourselves that we can do both.”
It all comes down to perseverance. Perhaps no one epitomizes that more than Brown.
Brown was the only player the Oilers signed last summer. He had missed all but four games the previous season after tearing his ACL and the beginning of this season was a nightmare. He went from the top six to being a scratch. It took until March 13, his 55th game, to score his first goal as an Oiler. He found himself as the odd man out when the playoffs started and was scratched for the entire first-round matchup against Los Angeles.
But since being reinserted because of an injury to Adam Henrique to commence the Vancouver series, Brown has seemingly gotten better by the game. He opened the scoring with a determined and skillful effort to earn and finish off a short-handed breakaway.
Coupled with his assist on Mattias Janmark’s opening tally in Game 4, Brown became the third player in NHL history to record a short-handed point in consecutive Cup Final games. The others are Hockey Hall of Famers Serge Savard (1968) and Bobby Orr (1970).
He’s an integral part of an elite penalty that’s gone 93.9 percent in the postseason. Those around the team consider the Brown-Janmark duo to be the Oilers’ best PK forward combo. Suddenly, Brown’s early mishaps are as distant as his team’s.
“A lot of people lost faith in him,” said Hyman, who was also Brown’s teammate with the Toronto Maple Leafs. “But I always knew how good he is.
“He’s been one of our best players — so impactful in all aspects that he plays.”
And now Brown and the Oilers are almost through the worst of it. They’re almost on the other side.
They so desperately wanted to drag the Panthers back to Alberta, as McDavid said after Game 4. They’ve done that. The scene in Edmonton for Game 6 will be wild on Friday.
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“The roof’s going to come off that place,” Brown said.
One more win and they’ll have a glimpse of the sewage-filled tunnel.
“The belief comes from that we’ve crawled our way out of holes before this year,” Brown said. “We’ve put together winning streaks when we’ve had to before this year.
“That unshakeable belief is growing.”
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch joked before Game 4 that a comeback would make for the perfect narrative for Hyman, the winger and children’s author.
“We have a job to do first,” Hyman said. “It would make for a heck of a story, so let’s go do it.”
The Oilers are getting ever closer. They’re tantalizingly close to Dufresne-like glory.
It might not be pretty. It might be a little messy. But it’s the only way the Oilers seem to know how.
“It would just make sense for the way this season’s gone,” Brown said. “It would just make sense. This has been a really unique season and I think we’re a unique group.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of situations where you can be down three games in the Stanley Cup Final and have that sense of belief, but we’re a unique team and we genuinely do.”
(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)
Daniel Nugent-Bowman is a staff writer who covers the Edmonton Oilers for The Athletic. Daniel has written about hockey for Sportsnet, The Hockey News, Yahoo Canada Sports and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DNBsports
