EDMONTON, Alberta — Brad Marchand secured a victory for the defending champion Florida Panthers by scoring on a breakaway during double overtime. This winning goal in their Stanley Cup Final rematch against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night resulted in a 5-4 win, leveling the series at one game each.
With Marchand netting his second goal of the evening 8:04 into the second overtime, Florida managed to snag a crucial split. Corey Perry had leveled the game by scoring with just 17.8 seconds remaining in regulation, while Stuart Skinner was off the ice for an additional attacker.
Each of the first two games this final have gone to overtime, for the first time since 2014 and just the sixth in NHL history.
As was the case last year and throughout this playoff run, Sergei Bobrovsky delivered exceptional goaltending when it mattered most, achieving some spectacular saves and blocking 42 out of 46 shots. His teammates backed him up with crucial scoring support.
Along with Marchand, Sam Bennett scored his postseason-leading 13th goal and NHL record 12th on the road.
Seth Jones scored into a wide-open net after some spectacular tic-tac-toe passing, and fellow defenseman Dmitry Kulikov tied it with a shot through traffic that Stuart Skinner almost certainly did not see.
Kulikov’s goal came after Florida controlled play for several minutes in the second, hemming Edmonton in its zone shift after shift and piling up a 34-13 advantage in shot attempts during the period.
Marchand’s OT goal was his 10th career goal in the final to lead all active players.
Game 3 is Monday night as the teams traverse the continent and play shifts to Sunrise.
The Panthers wrested home-ice advantage away from the Oilers by splitting the first two, rebounding from a Game 1 overtime loss and asserting they won’t go quietly against Draisaitl and Connor McDavid looking like they’ll do everything in their power to hoist the Cup for the first time.
Of course, those stars had their moments.
They assisted on Evan Bouchard’s goal when coach Kris Knoblauch put them on the ice together, and McDavid stickhandled through multiple defenders in highlight-reel fashion to set up Draisaitl scoring on the power play.
There were a lot of those — 10 in total — after officials whistled 14 penalties, including three in the first four minutes.
Each team had a few calls it was not happy with, though most of that evened out over the course of the game.
