By TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer
SUNRISE, Fla. — Paul Maurice made the short trip from his home to the Florida Panthers’ practice facility on Monday morning in a pretty good mood and rightly so. The sunshine was bright, the temperature was warm and his team was one win away from claiming the Stanley Cup.
That’s the glass-half-full outlook. The glass-half-empty perspective would be how his Panthers were coming off a seven-goal loss – tying the second-worst defeat by any team in a playoff game since 2001 and tying the second-worst loss in a Cup Final game ever.
As such, when asked if he was comfortable with a 3-1 series lead over the Edmonton Oilers in this title series, Maurice quickly explained that that simply doesn’t exist at this time of year.
“Oh, no, there’s no comfort in the playoffs,” the Panthers coach said. “You’re never in a comfortable position in the playoffs. You’ve earned your wins. You’ve earned your losses. It’s the same feeling. Every playoff loss feels the same. Maybe other people get comfortable. I haven’t had that for 30 years. You’re never comfortable. Which is good, right? Just got to harness it.”
The Panthers will seek to do just that on Tuesday night when, for the first time in their history, they will take to home ice one win from the Cup. Game 5 of the title series is in Sunrise, where the Oilers try to extend their season again and Florida tries to close out the series, the season and a 30-year quest for the franchise’s first championship.
Edmonton won Game 4 on Saturday night 8-1, the seventh time ever that a Cup Final game was decided by seven or more goals. The record for differential was Pittsburgh’s 8-0 victory over Minnesota in 1991.
“We’ve got the Stanley Cup on the line,” Florida forward Evan Rodrigues said. “Kind of a ‘How badly do you want it?’-type deal. There was a lot of energy going into that game. I think we’ll be better prepared for Game 5.”
The Oilers would expect nothing less.
It’s not fair to compare Edmonton’s horrible start to the season – the team was at the bottom of the NHL a few weeks into the year – to being down 3-0 in the Cup Final, but there is a parallel there in that the Oilers know what it’s like to play with no room for error. It brought out their best during the regular season, with a 16-game winning streak highlighting their turnaround, and brought out their best in Game 4.
“For us, being able to get to where we are shows everybody, no matter what they say, that we came together as a brotherhood,” Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner said. “So, there’s nothing but love in the room for the guys. A very special group of guys that just showed a lot of character through everything that we’ve been through. Here we are again, facing elimination, and we’re going to fight together, like we always do.”
Down 3-0 in the title series, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch told his players that he wanted them to enjoy their last 10 days together. The meaning was clear: He fully believes his club can take this series to the limit and see what happens in a Game 7.
One win down, two to go before those Game 7 hopes become reality.
“I don’t think it was ever a doubt that they weren’t a good team and they could be here today,” Knoblauch said. “I think belief was always part of that room.”
The Panthers have it as well.
They’re 4-1 after losses in these playoffs, outscoring their opponents by a combined 21-10 count in those five games that immediately followed a defeat. Granted, none of those previous five defeats in this postseason run resembled anything close to Saturday’s 8-1 rout.
“Can’t dwell on what’s in the past,” defenseman Brandon Montour said. “I think the boys obviously were pretty (angry) about the result, about the outcome that we put forward. But we pushed that pretty quick after we left the arena and we’ll focus on the next one.”
The way Maurice sees it, Saturday has to be a learning experience.
Edmonton was desperate, Florida wasn’t ready and that was that. The Cup will be in the building again Tuesday, ready for Florida to claim, just like it was on Saturday.
“It is different,” Maurice said of playing a game with the Cup one win away. “There’s the feeling of the goal sits in front of the game that’s played. So, in Game 3, the goal is behind the game. Can’t win it tonight. The game becomes priority. But when you can, then it sits in front of the game and you’ve got to break through it or figure out a way to get it behind the game again. I don’t know if that makes great sense, but it’s foremost in your head coming to the rink. You know it’s there.”
OILERS NEED MORE FROM McDAVID
Connor McDavid led the Oilers out of a horrendous start, all the way to the playoffs and into the Stanley Cup Final.
When Darnell Nurse was being criticized in the third round for his struggles, McDavid jumped to his defense. When Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and the Florida Panthers ganged up on Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, it was McDavid – a player not known for being in the fray after the whistle – who pushed his way in and took a few uppercuts for his trouble.
“It says a lot about him as a leader,” Hyman said. “I got hit in the head by Bennett, and I think he was the first one in there. He sticks up for his teammates and he’s not afraid to get into a scrum.”
The 27-year-old McDavid called it just a chance to “do my part.”
He has done more than his part to get Edmonton to this point as the leading scorer in the NHL playoffs with 38 points and the unquestioned leader as the face of the franchise and best player in hockey. The longtime captain, now in his ninth NHL season, has had fingerprints all over this long run, capped so far by a four-point performance to keep his team from getting swept.
More of that McDavid magic might be needed for the Oilers to extend the series.
“Any time our team’s backs are against the wall, he’s the first guy to push back,” Hyman said. “For us to come back, he’s got to be he best. He seems to always be the best when we’re in these situations.”
The whole league has seen it.
When the Oilers faced elimination the first time this postseason in Game 6 of the second round against Vancouver, McDavid had three assists. When they fell behind 2-1 to Dallas in the Western Conference final, yep, three more assists.
That’s why no one around the team was surprised – impressed, sure – when McDavid had a goal and three assists in Game 4 with Edmonton on the brink.
“That’s what the great ones do – they lead,” said teammate Connor Brown, who first played with McDavid a decade ago in junior with the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. “He’s one of the greats. He leads by example. He leads with his words, leads by example. When you need a shift, when you need a play, he pulls it out time and time again.”
McDavid, a three-time league MVP who has led the NHL in points five times and and in goals once and been a first-team All-Star six times, has accomplished just about everything on an individual basis. The latest was reaching 32 assists, breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record for the most in a single postseason.
With his mind solely on hoisting the Stanley Cup for the first time, he downplayed adding something else to the history books.
“Obviously not the focus with where we’re at, but not lost on me what he means to the game,” McDavid said. “Not the focus.”
McDavid’s focus is on team success. Those closest to him on a daily basis see it the most in practice.
“(It’s about) just how much he cares, how much he works,” said forward Dylan Holloway, who scored twice in Game 4. “He’s smart with the way he goes about it, and he always puts in max effort. Every rep in practice, he’s dialed in. He’s not kind of lollygagging, no matter how tired he is. I know he’s tired, too, because he plays so much and practice the next day. I’m tired and I play half what he plays, but he’s so dialed in practice.”
McDavid was the biggest reason the Oilers made the Final, and now it’s squarely on his shoulders to, as McDavid said, drag the Panthers back to Alberta.
“It’s not an accident he is the player he is,” Brown said. “He works harder than anyone I’ve ever met. Night in, night out he competes as hard as he can. He’s our best player, and he competes the hardest. We’re lucky to have him.”
‘BOB’ IS BACK
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky showed no signs of a Game 4 hangover when his team returned to the ice for practice Monday.
Bobrovsky had one spectacular save that had teammates howling in delight during the workout, which came two days after he was pulled during the 8-1 loss.
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Maurice said he knew Bobrovsky would be fine, especially since the Panthers put none of the blame for getting blown out on their starting goalie.
“There’s no bounce-back,” Maurice said. “It’s not like we were lights-out and he had a tough night. I got him out of there because he wasn’t going to have anything to do with anything positive that might happen.”
SEVENTH WIN BY SEVEN
Edmonton’s seven-goal win in Game 4 was the seventh time in franchise history that the Oilers won a playoff game by such a margin and the first time in a title-series game.
The Oilers’ record for a playoff win is 10 goals, a 13-3 victory over the Kings in 1987. They had a nine-goal win against Chicago in 1985, and a pair of eight-goal victories over Calgary in a four-day span of 1983.
The other seven-goal wins before Saturday were over Winnipeg in 1984 and the Kings in 1990.
AP hockey writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this story.