Panthers third line presents unique problem for Oilers
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The Edmonton Oilers are four wins shy of their first Stanley Cup since the 1990 season.
Standing in their way, an emerging rival in the Florida Panthers — the same club that infamously shut the door on last year’s championship bid in seven games.
That Stanley Cup Final was a roller coaster of a series. Florida’s fortress of a defence, backstopped by Sergei Bobrovsky, had the Panthers inches away from a sweep — they outscored Edmonton 11-4 (+7) in the opening three games, before a furious Edmonton rally (hallmarked by 18 goals in games four through six) shockingly pushed the series to Game 7.
The individual games weren’t very close, but the talent gap between the two sides felt razor-thin, and that feels true again this year.
Do you want the team with incredible playing depth and a Hall of Fame goaltender? If so, take the Panthers. But if you believe superstars carry the day in the biggest moments, it’s the Oilers with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
And why not be confident in Edmonton? They just dispatched the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars, two goliaths, with relative ease. Dallas and Vegas would seem like carbon copies of the Panthers team they’re about to face. With one major exception.
I have fawned over Florida’s middle-six forwards this postseason, with extreme emphasis on the forechecking nightmare of Brad Marchand, Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen – Florida’s most commonly utilized line through three rounds. To say they have blown the doors off the Eastern Conference would be an understatement:
Watch their shifts, and you’ll see what sort of nightmare they are to play against. They define physical hockey in all the right ways — heavy on the boards, unrelenting off-puck pressure that forces turnovers, and when they gain the offensive zone, trust they’re going to dominate the areas between the circles and in front of the net-mouth.
None of Tampa Bay, Toronto, or Carolina had answers for this group. And it’s not lost on me this same group of forwards showed favourably against Edmonton during last year’s Stanley Cup. Only four forwards were positive in their head-to-head minutes during last year’s matchup at even strength, and two of them were Luostarinen (+1) and Lundell (+1).
Concatenate that line with the likes of an Aleksander Barkov-led group at the top of the lineup, and a Matthew Tkachuk-anchored second line, and you have the mix of a team that’s just going to be difficult to find goals against.
It’s what we saw throughout the regular season, most of this without Marchand in the lineup (via HockeyViz):
The Lundell-Luostarinen-Marchand trio will see minutes against one or both of Edmonton’s big lines, but they’ll also have an opportunity to go to work against Edmonton’s depth forwards.
If there is any vulnerability on this Oilers team, it’s near the bottom of the lineup. Pair the McDavid and Draisaitl-less forward groups with the frequently besieged Darnell Nurse pairing, and you are looking at some seriously disadvantageous minutes for Edmonton.
The Oilers are a relatively deeper team than last year and still have two game-changers of the highest magnitude, and oddsmakers have noticed. But from a matchup perspective, it’s hard to think of any lineup in the league more equipped to extend Edmonton’s title drought another year.
Enjoy the Stanley Cup Final. And for record keeping, I see this series again going the distance. But this time, I suspect it will end with the Cup coming home to Canada.
Data via Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick