Leon Draisaitl scored extra time for the fourth time in this playoffs, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers 5-4 in game 4 of the Stanley Cup final on Thursday night to tie the series, erasing a three-goal deficit and bouncing after allowing the late goal.
Jake Walman gave the Oilers his first advantage with 6:24 remaining in the third period before Sam Reinhart scored with 19.5 seconds to send it to extra time. Three of the first four games of this final have needed extra time to resolve, the first time it happened since 2013 and the fifth time in the history of the NHL.
The goal of Draisaitl 11:18 in OT, the fourth additional hockey session among these teams, sent the return series to the west of Canada. Game 5 of what is becoming a classic round trip between two heavy pesos of hockey is Saturday night in Edmonton.
“It is obviously a lucky rebound. There is no secret about it. We will take it,” Draisaitl said.
“We are a resistant group. We will never give up no matter what. We will take it and go home,” he added. “Our first is not what we wanted and then we began to get our legs … That is the intensity with which we have to play when the album falls.”
Draisaitl established a NHL playoff record with his fourth extra time goal in a postseason, breaking a draw that shared with four players, including Matthew Tkachuk from Florida in 2023, the current teammate Corey Perry, who did it with Anaheim in 2017, and Maurice Richard (1951). It was his second goal of this series, joining John Leclair de Montreal, who scored two OT goals in the Victory of the Canadiens over Los Angeles in 1993, and the New York Rangers Don Raleigh in 1950.
The Oilers became the first team of the road to recover from three to win a game in the final from the Montreal Canadiens against the Metropolitans of Seattle in 1919. Only six teams have returned from three in the NHL final, the last time in 2006.
Edmonton is very much in him, even after it seemed that he would leave the series. The Oilers were 3-0 in the first period in a couple of goals from Matthew Tkachuk and another with 41.7 remaining seconds of Anton Lundell, which could have been a groundbreaking.
Coach Kris Knoblauch took Stuart Skinner after his headline allowed those three goals in 17 shots in the first, when the ice was inclined against him and his teammates did not have much rejection. In Wern Calvin Pickard, the support of the officer who won the six beginnings of the playoffs before injuring himself.
Pickard made some acrobatic salvations, stopping the first 18 shots that he faced and racing the way for a return to the century. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored in Edmonton’s first power work, Darnell’s nurse defeated Sergei Bobrovsky with another tall shot and Vasily Podkolzin did it 3-all with less than five minutes remaining in the second.
With Draisaitl in the penalty box to start the third, the oilers were on their heels for several minutes and trusted Pickard to keep the score tied. Every shot he faced until Walman fired the album beyond Bobrovsky to silence a large majority of the crowd and incite a roar of Edmonton fans among the attendees together with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Panthers fans had another chance to cheer when Reinhart tied it late. Then Draisaitl calmed them again.
With the Hockey Hall of Fame, Wayne Gretzky, Jaromir Jag and Henrik Lundqvist also in the building, the Oilers made sure they would not go silent and stayed behind 3-1 in the final as they did last year. They forced game 7, but finally they fell short, with Florida winning the cup for the first time in the history of the franchise.
Now, each of these teams is a couple of victories to be champions.
