EDMONTON, Alberta — Corey Perry is the one Oilers participant with a Stanley Cup ring, profitable with the Anaheim Geese in 2007. As his group faces elimination in Sport 4 towards the Florida Panthers on Saturday night time, Perry’s message to his teammates is evident: Play prefer it’s the final time you will ever be within the Stanley Cup Last.
“How have you learnt that there is going to be one other time? That is the largest factor you may put in your thoughts is there won’t be one other time. I guess you half these guys won’t ever play within the Stanley Cup Last once more. It is simply the truth of sports activities,” Perry mentioned on Friday. “And that is the place you set that struggle in. That is what you must go residence at the moment and take into consideration.”
The Oilers misplaced Sport 3 of the Last, 4-3, on Thursday. A collection of miscues within the second interval allowed Florida to take a 4-1 lead in entrance of a shocked Edmonton crowd. The Oilers rallied with two objectives within the third interval, however ahead Leon Draisaitl mentioned, “While you’re chasing the sport for an enormous chunk of the night time, it is simply exhausting to come back again.”
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Perry acknowledged that morale was low after the loss, which put Edmonton down 0-3 within the collection.
“Final night time was robust. It was fairly somber right here after the sport. It isn’t simple once you go down 3-0 and also you play a reasonably good sport, make just a few errors and so they find yourself at the back of the web,” he mentioned. “These issues occur in sports activities. You gotta recover from it.”
The hours forward of Sport 4 will not be a reinvention of the Oilers’ sport. Whereas their high 5 scorers have but to notch a aim within the collection — together with stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — Edmonton has generated probabilities towards a Florida protection that ranked first within the common season. Panthers coach Paul Maurice mentioned the collection might have simply been 3-0 in favor of Edmonton with how tightly the video games have been performed, with goalie Sergei Bobrovsky ceaselessly being the distinction for Florida.
“I really feel like by way of three video games, have we deserved to win a sport? I feel so. I feel we have performed two a minimum of fairly good video games,” Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm mentioned. “It hasn’t occurred for us, however it’s 4 video games. We had stretches of eight video games and 16 video games all through the common season. We gained three straight towards Dallas. So we will do it. It is a matter of simply discovering that first win and go from there.”
If there’s one overriding mantra within the Oilers’ locker room, it is that they’ve put collectively lengthy profitable streaks through the season. Goalie Stuart Skinner mentioned after Sport 3 that “if anybody can do it, it is the Oil,” and his teammates echoed that.
“Nicely, this group gained 16 video games in a row throughout a daily season. And sure, they don’t seem to be all towards Florida, however you have a look at the best way we performed,” Perry mentioned. “The spurts we have performed in. We will play with that. We all know that. We have proven it. It is a matter of will and need.”
Ahead Zach Hyman, who additionally would not have some extent on this collection, agreed that the percentages are towards Edmonton profitable the Cup — however that they’ve defied the percentages this season.
“The chances mentioned that we weren’t going to make the playoffs at American Thanksgiving and a number of instances in these playoffs we have been down, too,” he mentioned. “I feel we play our greatest when our backs are towards the wall and going through elimination.”
That is the place the Oilers discover themselves after three video games, understanding that 20 of the 28 groups that took a 3-0 lead within the Stanley Cup Last ended these collection in a sweep — and that just one group, the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, ever rallied to win after digging a 0-3 gap.