EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Going into this Stanley Cup Final rematch, confidence oozed from the Florida Panthers just like last year when they won — and also this time from the Edmonton Oilers because they felt prepared for the moment.
After losing Game 1 in overtime after a puck over the glass penalty put Edmonton on the power play, the Panthers have not lost any of the belief they carried into the series. In a third consecutive final, the defending champions are unfazed by their deficit and appear well equipped to bounce back in Game 2 on Friday night.
“We’ve got a lot of battle scars on us from the last few years, and we’ve been through way worse,” winger Matthew Tkachuk said Thursday. “We can be better, we can adjust a few things and come out tomorrow and try to get a win here and get some momentum going back home.”
A win would even things up and put the pressure right back on reigning playoff MVP Connor McDavid, Game 1-winning goal-scorer Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers with play shifting to Sunrise next week. Even a loss would not put the Panthers into desperate straits.
They dropped the first two in the second round against Toronto and trailed 2-0 and 3-1 in Game 3 before rallying to win that night and beat the Maple Leafs in seven. Even for Florida’s newcomers, it was evidence that this team doesn’t go down easy.
“You’re going to have moments in the game and moments in a series that you’re going to be riding a roller coaster,” defenseman Nate Schmidt said. “This team, I think, has an incredible ability to be able to not only learn from what they’ve done and apply their experience into situations like this.”
Coach Paul Maurice downplayed it as “just experience,” as though every team in the NHL or any sport knows what it is like to make this many deep playoff runs in a row and look borderline unstoppable. Because of that success, the Panthers are who they are, and not a lot of major adjustments are expected.
“It’s almost always an adjustment back to form: We were a little off here, we can be a little bit better,” Maurice said. “Nobody’s changing a major system. It takes months and years to do that. You’re (talking about) adjustments back to form, but I think they have a pretty strong understanding of their foundation.”
Panthers players seem to have a pretty strong understanding of how playoff hockey works. They’ve won 10 of 11 playoff series since Maurice became coach and Tkachuk arrived in a trade from Calgary in the summer of 2022.
The only time they’ve been on the wrong side of a handshake line during this stretch was the 2023 final against Vegas, when Tkachuk was sidelined by a broken sternum and several others were playing with significant injuries. The memories of that and falling behind in series along the way stick with them.
“We learn more from adversity than we do from winning,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “Every time you lose games or go through series where you’re down 2-0 or losing in the Cup final a couple of years ago, you learn a lot. It’s just sticking with it and being mentally strong.”
Tkachuk said he and his teammates are plenty strong mentally, so the tweaks will be more tactical. They won’t look too different but have some areas to clean up.
“Maybe a little bit more offensive zone time, some things we look at, but they played a good game,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “They were solid defensively. They blocked a lot of shots. And we kind of knew that coming in there’s not a lot of space out there, not a lot of plays to be made, really. So, when we do get those opportunities, try to hold on to the puck and capitalize.”
The Oilers turned the puck over several times in Game 1, with goaltender Stuart Skinner saving them a few times from the score getting more lopsided than the 3-1 deficit they overcame. They figure to be much improved in those areas.
Coach Kris Knoblauch knows his team has to raise its level “because we know how good Florida is.” The blueprint has been out there for several years, and it’s an imposing one.
“They’re pretty confident with their identity, and they play to that identity very well,” Knoblauch said. “They have a lot of confidence that they’ll play their game and they should come out on top. For us, we need to just be ready for it — that they are going to be better.”
___
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
