Comment|Edmonton hit a bone in Florida’s throat, but the big picture of the final series did not change, writes hockey journalist Sami Hoffrén.
Edmonton
Edmonton Oilers–Florida Panthers 8–1 (wins 1–3)
Keep hats off. I wouldn’t have thought that the Edmonton Oilers would get back on their feet and be able to upset the Florida Panthers in this finals series.
Early on Sunday morning, the Panthers had a chance to end the finals series and start the championship celebration on the away field, but the Oilers hit a hard spot and hit a bone in the throat.
The Oilers’ 8-1 knockout win in Game 4 was fully deserved in the infernal cauldron of horns also known as Rogers Place. A grumpy and irritated home team came out of the hatches, which simply did not agree to squat for the holidays in four straight matches.
A straight four game sweep would have been rare. The last time the team lost the final series in four straight games was 26 years ago, when the Detroit Red Wings rolled to the championship in the summer of 1998 against the Washington Capitals.
Next, the final series will move to Florida, where the Fifth match will be played early Wednesday morning at 03:20 Finnish time.
Despite the Oilers’ opening win, nothing has changed in the big picture. The Panthers remain the overwhelming favorite to win the title.
The fourth match was a rare passing game, which only happens now and then even for top teams. The goalkeeper game also failed. Changed to the bench after the fifth goal Sergei Bobrovsky must be better.
The Oilers head coach Chris Knoblauch is a great man and a good coach, but he collapsed to talk nonsense before the fourth final match.
Knoblauch, who is in the first season of his career as an NHL head coach, announced by playing poker that the Oilers have not fallen behind in terms of play and are as good a team as the Panthers.
Wrong. The Oilers have only occasionally been able to challenge the Panthers in the final series. There has been a shockingly big difference in collectives and game discipline in favor of the Panthers – except for the foursome, which went elegantly under the command of the Oilers.
In the foursome, for the first time, the Oilers were able to create holes in the Panthers’ 5–5 game. The Oilers stretched their five vertically a bit more and left the top forward, which worked. The Oilers’ quick change of direction game and direct attack was at its peak in the fourth game, and this surprised the Panthers’ pants by the ankles.
All credit to the Oilers for their first Finals berth in 18 years, but this summer’s Finals series is unlikely to be anything like a classic series. At no point in the series has it been unclear which team is better.
The Panthers have looked like champions in every aspect for months now. All parts are tip top and the assembly is in top condition.
One one of the starkest differences between the finalists has been in depth. Panthers triple chain, Eetu Luostarinen, Anton Lundell and Vladimir Tarasenkohas played a fantastic final series and has risen to a big role.
The chain led by Lundell won the first three matches of the final series by a crushing 4–0.
The first beauty mistake didn’t happen until the foursome, when Lundell’s chain took its nose Adam Henrique in a 2–0 goal. Before the goal Niko Mikkolan soft playing in own and right after Lundell falling asleep in front of the goal. It cost dearly.
However, Lundell’s chain made up for the deficit moments later by hitting a 1-2 draw.
Conn Smythe Trophy winning favorite Alexander Barkov was not at his best in the foursome. The Finnish captain took the deficit right away in the Oilers’ opening goal, which came about when the Panthers were playing for superiority. Darnell Nurse Barkov also scored a 5–1 goal from the penalty spot.
Before the start of the Finals series, the Oilers were praised for the depth and width of the lineup, but this has been complete nonsense most of the time. The Oilers are still too much of a forward-oriented team to go all the way.
Connor McDavid’s, Leon Draisaitl, by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and by Zach Hyman behind in the attack is eerily quiet.
In the fourth match, the bottom chains finally got a decent push, when the triple and quadruple chains hit a surprising number of goals. For the Oilers, the big guys also played their best game in an important place.
McDavid (1+3), who scored the opening goal of the final series, was the best player on the field and always dangerous. Struggling with power, Nugent-Hopkins (1+0), Draisaitl (0+2) and Hyman (0+2) opened their score account in the final series at the time of the count.
Now we’ll have to wait a couple of days before we get to see the response of the Panthers’ top players to canceling the foursome. You have to be able to do better.
Couldn’t handle it more about the rut of refereeing, but it has to be brought up.
In the final series of the Stanley Cup, there has been a lot of tearing and hanging. The line is of course the same for both, but fast and skilled players inevitably suffer from it.
It’s downright embarrassing to watch how much, for example, McDavid has to endure tearing and outright blocking in different situations.
If the NHL wanted to intervene in the loose line, it could do it, but now in the final series you can play in a gray area with violence, which is the advantage of the physical Panthers.
Another thing also surprises me. What is it that when McDavid is dragged like a wild pig after the whistles, as happened again in the second period of the foursome, the Oilers players do not rush to the defense of their captain?
It is completely incomprehensible that teammates do not protect their captain and the superior leader of the team that much better. So far, the Panthers have bluntly exploited this.
The final series continues Finnish time on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday in Florida.
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