Panthers Thrill NHL Fans in Game 7 Win vs. McDavid, Oilers to Clinch 1st Stanley Cup
Scott Polacek@@ScottPolacek
Featured Columnist IVJune 25, 2024
You can finally exhale, Florida Panthers fans.
Florida not only avoided blowing a 3-0 lead to Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers with Monday's 2-1 victory in Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena, it also lifted hockey's most coveted trophy for the first time in franchise history.
The Panthers can finally call themselves champions, while the Oilers fell just one win short of their first title since 1990. They also fell one win short of becoming the first team to overcome a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final since the Toronto Maple Leafs did so against the Detroit Red Wings in 1942.
Carter Verhaeghe opened the scoring for the victors in the first period, while Sam Reinhart put them ahead for good in the second.
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky resembled the dominant version of himself who started the series and turned away 23 of the 24 shots he faced. Only Mattias Janmark bested him in the first period, and he and the Florida defense withstood all of the visitors' comeback efforts down the stretch.
Social media had plenty of reactions to the thrilling win:
All the momentum was on Edmonton's side following three straight wins, making a fast start all the more imperative for the Panthers in front of the home crowd.
And they got just that, although it was quite short-lived. Verhaeghe started the scoring in the first five minutes of the contest, which marked Florida's first lead since Game 3. However, that didn't even last three entire minutes, as Janmark countered for Edmonton with the equalizer in a frantic back-and-forth start.
Stuart Skinner and Bobrovsky settled in from there ahead of a monumental momentum switch in the second period.
It looked like the Oilers were going to score the go-ahead goal with a persistent attack that seemed to beat Bobrovsky, but Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov swept the puck away before it found the net.
Reinhart took it from there and fired a wrist shot into the net on the other end to turn what appeared to be a sure one-goal deficit into a one-goal lead.
The rest of the game was determined by Bobrovsky and the Florida defense.
Edmonton continued to attack the net, including during multiple near scrums in front of the Panthers' net, just to be turned away every single time. The home team didn't create many scoring opportunities for themselves, but they were firmly focused on the defensive side of the ice.
It was a closing stretch that will forever be remembered by the Panthers and their fans, and it resulted in their first Stanley Cup.