Call Outs, Stand Outs, and Shoutouts: Oilers drag Panthers back to Alberta with Game 5 win
June 19, 2024
Deep Dive: 5v5 play through five games of the Stanley Cup Final
June 20, 2024
June 19, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg
Connor McDavid said that the Edmonton Oilers had a job to do in Game 5, which was to “drag ‘em back to Alberta”. The Oilers have successfully accomplished the goal of dragging the Florida Panthers back to Alberta for Game 6.
McDavid didn’t just drag the Panthers back to Alberta. He did it while carrying the Oilers on his shoulders.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a full team effort. McDavid has repeatedly said that “everyone’s pulling on the rope”, and he’s right. Connor Brown made an incredible individual play to break up a pass and score on a short-handed breakaway. Evan Bouchard had three assists. Stuart Skinner made 29 saves.
Let’s be real though… when the best player on the planet gets four points in an elimination game, he rose to the occasion and put the team on his back. When he does it two games in a row in the Stanley Cup Final, he REALLY rose to the occasion and put the team on his back!
There are two players that have ever had multiple four-point nights in a single Stanley Cup Final. McDavid is one, and Wayne Gretzky is the other. Gretzky accomplished the feat in the 1985 Stanley Cup Final against the Philadelphia Flyers. McDavid has accomplished something that had only been done one other time 39 years ago,
Gretzky didn’t get four points in consecutive games though. McDavid is the ONLY player in NHL history to get four points in consecutive Stanley Cup Final games. Remember that these were also ELIMINATION games!
McDavid is just the sixth player in NHL history to record more than one career four-point game in the Stanley Cup Final. He accomplished this in his first Stanley Cup Final.
It’s not as if McDavid piled up secondary assists in these two games. Five if not six of McDavid’s eight points in the last two games were pretty plays. McDavid got his first goal of the series in the second period of Game 4. He got a clean look at Bobrovsky on the rush, and he beat him clean with a wrist shot. McDavid got assists on the next three Oilers goals, including a drop pass to Darnell Nurse on the rush, a cross-seam feed to Leon Draisaitl in his office on the powerplay (that was eventually batted home by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins), and a cross-crease pass to Dylan Holloway to finish a beautiful three-way passing play. Yes, he got points on four consecutive Oilers goals in Game 4.
Related: Call Outs, Stand Outs, and Shoutouts: Oilers make presence felt in emphatic Game 4 win
McDavid’s onslaught continued in Game 5. He got an innocuous secondary assist on Zach Hyman’s powerplay goal early in the second period. Then he got himself on the board with a cheeky play where he cut down the left wing and slid the puck along the ice to beat Bobrovsky, who was standing up. He caught Bobrovsky napping on that one.
The highlight of the night was McDavid’s second assist of the game. He got the puck in his own end as he usually does on the powerplay, and he proceeded to dash into the offensive zone. He got around Eetu Luostarinen and found himself right in the middle of all four Panthers defenders. McDavid found a way to split Dmitri Kulikov and Niko Mikkola with some fast stickhandling underneath Mikkola’s stick, and he found Corey Perry at the back door for a tap-in goal. We’ve seen McDavid go through four defenders multiple times before, but never on this stage.
Related: Call Outs, Stand Outs, and Shoutouts: Oilers drag Panthers back to Alberta with Game 5 win
Finally, he scored an empty netter to seal the Oilers victory. It wasn’t a typical empty netter though. The Oilers cleared the puck from their own end and it slid towards the Panthers’ empty net. McDavid took off up the ice, and he put Oliver Ekman-Larsson in his dust. Matthew Tkachuk was ahead of McDavid, and he was somehow able to sweep the puck off the goal line with a diving save. McDavid slowed down as he realized that Tkachuk was going to get to the puck. McDavid was able to collect the rebound, turn around, and fire it past Tkachuk into the empty net while Ekman-Larsson was asleep in the corner. It was a subtle but smart play by McDavid, and he made no mistake on the finish.
Oilers fans that watch McDavid every game are used to this type of performance. We see him do things like this consistently. Now the world is getting to see a glimpse of the magic that we see from McDavid on a consistent basis.
The Stanley Cup Final stage makes these last two games from McDavid legendary. Regardless of what happens in Game 6, the last two games will go down as signature performances in McDavid’s career. Minstrels will write songs about the magical hands of McDavid when his team was on the brink of death in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.
All we know at this point is that we get one last chance to see McDavid and the Oilers at Rogers Place this season in Game 6 on Friday night. It’s one more chance to see McDavid’s magic in this series. I can’t wait to see what he and the Oilers have in store on Friday night.
