June 26, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Florida Panthers are the 2024 Stanley Cup champions after one of the most entertaining and dramatic finals we’ve ever seen. The Panthers needed all seven games after going up 3-0 on the Edmonton Oilers in the series.

Sergei Bobrovsky was the biggest reason that the Panthers won the first two games at home. He only allowed one goal on 51 shots in those two games. 

The Oilers came home to a raucous crowd at Rogers Place for Game 3. A tough second period led to their demise in Game 3. The Oilers tied the game early in the period, but mistakes led to a three-goal second period by the Panthers. One of those second period goals ended up being the difference.

The Oilers MORE than made up for it in Game 4 with an incredible 8-1 win. The Oilers got three goals on Bobrovksy in Game 3, but Bobrovsky allowing five goals on sixteen shots in the first half of the game was the thing that really changed the series.

The Oilers came out of the gates hot in Game 5. They got off to a 3-0 lead in the second period. The teams exchanged goals later in the period, including a highlight reel assist by Connor McDavid on a Corey Perry goal. It was one of four points for McDavid on the night. Game 5 was his second consecutive four-point night, which is a feat that nobody else has ever accomplished in the Stanley Cup Final. McDavid added an empty netter to seal a 5-3 win and to force a Game 6 at Rogers Place.

Game 6 was a simply dominant performance by the Oilers. A 5-1 win in front of a Rogers Place crowd that deserves adjectives that are beyond my vocabulary forced a Game 7 in Sunrise.

The Panthers came out with the guns blazing in front of their home crowd in Game 7. They got the first goal, but Mattias Janmark responded a short while later. The Oilers survived the first period and had settled the crowd down a little bit. The Panthers played a solid second period. It was a scoreless period, but the Oilers couldn’t seem to get anything going in that period. The Oilers loaded up by putting McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together down by a goal in the third period of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, but the Panthers held strong defensively. They won Game 7 by a 2-1 score.

Five-on-Five Play

This was a battle between the league’s best defensive team and one of the top offensive teams in the league. 

The Panthers had only allowed 24 five-on-five goals in seventeen games entering the Stanley Cup Final, but the Oilers tagged them for fourteen five-on-five goals in seven games in the Final. The final five-on-five goal tally was even, but we have to remember that the Oilers got six of those goals in Game 4 alone.

The Oilers had allowed 38 five-on-five goals in eighteen games entering the Final. They allowed fourteen goals in the seven games in the Final. Their defensive performance was right on par with every other series they played this spring.

The Panthers held slight advantages in shot attempts (53.12%), expected goals (51.26%), and scoring chances (51.95%) according to Natural Stat Trick. It would be entirely fair to give them a slight edge in five-on-five play in this series.

Special Teams

Special teams were a factor in the series, but not for the reasons that you might think. The Oilers powerplay is their biggest weapon, but it only went 3/24 (12.5%) in the series. They finally scored a powerplay goal in Game 4, but that was a five-on-three goal. It took an Evan Bouchard blast bouncing in off of Zach Hyman’s knee in Game 5 for the Oilers to finally get a five-on-four powerplay goal in the series. Perry’s powerplay goal was the result of a McDavid walking through three Panthers defenders. It took a bounce or McDavid magic for the Oilers to get a five-on-four goal in the series.

The Oilers penalty kill was even better than the Panthers’ was though. The Oilers only allowed one goal on 21 attempts in the series. The Oilers penalty kill outscored the Panthers powerplay 2-1 in the series! That’s the second straight series in which the Oilers penalty kill did that. The Panthers also allowed two shorthanded goals in the Eastern Conference Final. I wrote that shorthanded goals by the Oilers would be something to watch for in the series, and shorthanded goals opened the scoring in Game 4 and 5 wins for the Oilers.

The Oilers special teams were superior in the series, but it wasn’t enough of a difference to push them over the top.

Goaltending

It looked like Bobrovsky was going to single-handedly win the series for the Panthers after the first two games. He had a 32-save shutout in Game 1, and he stopped eighteen of nineteen shots in Game 2. Bobrovsky was looking unbeatable and unshakeable.

However, the Oilers got to him in Game 3. The Panthers were up 4-1 after two periods, but the Oilers got it to 4-3. A Philip Broberg point shot bounced off of a Panthers defenceman and past Bobrovsky. Then Ryan McLeod tipped a puck past Bobrovsky to make Game 3 interesting. It took a couple of bounces to put some doubt in Bobrovsky’s head.

The Oilers got a shorthanded goal from Mattias Janmark to open the scoring in Game 4, and that seemingly broke the dam. The Oilers got out to a 5-0 before the game was 25 minutes old, and Bobrovsky was yanked. Anthony Stolarz didn’t fare much better in Game 4 as the Oilers went on to an 8-1 win.

Related: Can the Oilers keep the goals coming, or will Bobrovsky shut the door?

The Oilers got four more past Bobrovsky in Game 5. McDavid got his second consecutive four-point night, three of which happened with Bobrovsky in net.

The 5-1 score in Game 6 makes it look worse for Bobrovsky than it actually was because of two empty net goals by the Oilers.

Bobrovsky was solid in Game 7 though. He made 23 saves on 24 shots in the 2-1 win. The Oilers got nine shots and nine scoring chances in the third period of Game 7, but Bobrovsky shut the door in the third period to preserve the win and to clinch the Stanley Cup for the Panthers.

The final numbers for Bobrovsky in the Stanley Cup Final were disastrous. He had a 0.812 save percentage and a 5.49 goals against average in the series. I would not have expected that after his first two games, and I would not have expected those numbers to be enough for the Panthers to win the series.

Stuart Skinner deserves a ton of credit for his play. The series started out a little bit shaky, but I would say that his teammates left him out to dry in the first three games of the series. The goals that Skinner allowed in those games came off quality chances caused by Oiler mistakes.

He settled into the series though. Skinner made 32 saves on 33 shots in Game 4. The Oilers won the game 8-1, but Skinner made some big saves early while the result was still in doubt. He played well enough for the Oilers to win in Game 5, and he was fantastic in Game 6.

Skinner allowed two goals in the Game 7 loss. The first one was tipped in by Carter Verhaeghe. That shot was going into the corner if not forVerhaeghe’s tip. That’s an unfortunate bounce.

Sam Reinhart beat Skinner cleanly under the glove for the game winner late in the second period. Reinhart got the puck by his own blue line and led the rush. It looked like a three-on-two rush, so Brett Kulak drifted away from Reinhart and more in between Reinhart and Verhaeghe. I feel like that was a bit of a misread by Kulak because Warren Foegele was in hot pursuit of Aleksander Barkov on the backcheck. Kulak gave Reinhart a huge gap, and it looked like he may have partially screened Skinner on the shot. It’s still a shot that Skinner would want back, but I will not blame Skinner for the loss. Skinner was otherwise solid in Game 7.

Skinner had the superior numbers over Bobrovsky in the series. Skinner had a .909 save percentage and a 2.33 goals against average in the Stanley Cup Final. If there were any doubts about Skinner’s ability to get it done on the biggest stage entering the series, then I feel that he has removed any doubts with his play in this series.

Call Outs

The team simply made too many defensive mistakes in the first three games of the series. I won’t call out individuals here because it wasn’t one player or pairing that consistently made the mistakes in all three of those games. As a team, they needed to find a way to make less mistakes, especially in the second period of Game 3 after they had tied the game.

I will call out the powerplay though. They led the playoffs in efficiency through the first three rounds, but they limped home. They went 3/24 (12.5%) in the Stanley Cup Final. They failed to score a powerplay goal until Game 4, and they failed to score a five-on-four powerplay goal until Game 5. They did not score a powerplay goal in any of the four losses in the series. The Oilers’ biggest weapon was held in check, and the Oilers lost the series.

Stand Outs

Connor McDavid had eleven points in this Stanley Cup Final, which is tied for the third highest amount of points in a single Stanley Cup Final. McDavid got eight of those points in games 4 and 5, consecutive four-point games. Wayne Gretzky also had two four-point nights in a Stanley Cup Final in 1985, but he did not do it in consecutive games. McDavid’s feat stands alone. He did this while playing through an abdominal injury that may require surgery according to Oilersnation.

The penalty kill was absolutely incredible in the series. They killed off 20 of 21 powerplay opportunities for the Panthers. The penalty kill was a huge reason that the Oilers were able to push this series to seven games. They not only prevented the opposition from scoring, but they also outscored the Panthers powerplay 2-1 in the series thanks to Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark.

Shoutouts

Warren Foegele deserves a big shoutout for his improved play in the Stanley Cup Final. Foegele had struggled throughout the playoffs until he scored the first Oilers goal in a Stanley Cup Final game at Rogers Place in Game 3. He got five points from Game 3 to Game 6. He was a big reason that the Oilers were able to push their way back into the series.

Related: Foegele’s Stanley Cup Final resurgence

Mattias Janmark got four points in the series, all of which came in the final four games. He got a shorthanded goal to open the scoring in Game 4. Janmark made a beautiful saucer pass to Adam Henrique to give the Oilers a 2-0 lead in Game 6. Finally, Janmark scored the only Oilers goal in Game 7. Janmark was great on the forecheck, and he was incredible on the penalty kill.

Related: Janmark and Brown appreciation Post

Connor Brown played his role incredibly well. It was his work that resulted in the shorthanded goal that got the scoring going in Game 4, and the shorthanded goal in Game 5 was all Brown. Brown was also solid in five-on-five play. It was great to see him succeed in this series after such a difficult regular season coming off of his injury.

Philip Broberg came into the playoffs during the Western Conference Final, and he never came out of the lineup again. His underlying numbers weren’t stellar, but he finished with a five-on-five goal share of 5-2 (71.42%) in the Stanley Cup Final. He also scored a goal in Game 3. 

Wrap

This was an absolutely incredible series. The players gave us a fantastic show. It was full of historic performances, and one giant nearly historic storyline.

I want to talk about one factor that hasn’t been mentioned here yet, which is coaching. The Oilers struggled early in the series, but they made some tactical adjustments heading into Game 4. They responded by scoring eight goals. 

The Panthers’ forecheck remained the same as it had all season long, but the Oilers found a way to break through it by utilizing passes to the middle of the ice or across the ice from the strong side to the weak side. The Panthers would stack three players along the strong side wall in an effort to create turnovers high in the offensive zone. The Oilers started having a forward play lower in the zone on breakouts, and they started having the weak side defenceman accept cross ice passes and lead the rush up the ice. They also started utilizing the stretch pass to a forward waiting at the offensive blue line more often in an effort to prevent the Panthers’ forecheck from happening in the first place. 

Credit to Kris Knoblauch for making the adjustments. He should also get credit for making a more subtle change to start Game 4, which was starting the Janmark-Henrique-Brown line against Barkov’s line. That matchup worked nicely for the Oilers.

Paul Maurice didn’t make any real adjustments until Game 7. I noticed that the weak side forward started retreating earlier on the forecheck to prevent odd man rushes against. They also did a great job of keeping McDavid’s speed in check by having a forward skating the same direction as McDavid in the neutral zone. That limited the number of times that McDavid was able to attack the neutral zone with speed. Maurice also started his third line against the Henrique line in Game 7, which was a deviation from the norm.

Related: Call Outs, Stand Outs, and Shoutouts: Game 7

I have to give a lot of credit to the Panthers, especially in Game 7. The Oilers were hesitant to shoot the puck all night long. It wasn’t jitters or a poor mentality on the part of the Oilers. The Panthers were simply always in the way. They always had a body or a stick in the shooting lane. I haven’t seen many teams defend with their sticks to the level that the Panthers did in Game 7. They also sold out defensively in the third period. The Oilers had some good looks to tie it on scramble plays in front of the net, but the Oilers couldn’t get good shots away in those scrambles.

The Panthers deserved the series, and they won it. The Oilers made a valiant comeback, but some costly mistakes early in the series proved to be too much to overcome. Congratulations to the Panthers and their fans.