Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 52: Rodrigues scores twice in third as Panthers win 4-1

It was Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night, with the Florida Panthers up 1-0 in the series after a tight 3-0 win in Game 1 that saw Sergei Bobrovsky stand on his head. The Panthers were looking to take a 2-0 series lead at home, while the Edmonton Oilers were still looking for their first goal of the Stanley Cup Final.

While the first 5-10 minutes of the game were somewhat calm, things really picked up in the second half of the first period. It all started when Warren Foegele took a five-minute major penalty for kneeing Eetu Luostarinen.

It looked to be another bad start for the Oilers, but things started to turn around. Partway through the power play, Oliver Ekman-Larsson took a penalty for the Panthers, and with the teams evened up at four-a-piece, the Oilers struck with the opening goal from Mattias Ekholm, and on the first shot on Bobrovsky after his shutout in Game 1.

On top of that, the dressing rooms got plenty of traffic in the first. First there was Luostarinen after taking the knee-on-knee hit, but then he returned later in the period. Then Darnell Nurse went to the room after the five-minute major and didn’t return. And then finally Aaron Ekblad took an awkward hit later in the period and went to the dressing room, but he returned for the second.

So for those keeping score at home, the Oilers were without Foegele after the ejection, and Nurse was being held in a limited role.

It wasn’t until midway through the second period when the Panthers got it tied up, but it wasn’t without a bit of danger. Niko Mikkola nearly scored on Bobrovsky when trying to clear the puck out of the slot, but then as the Panthers carried it back up ice, the defender redeemed himself with a slap shot goal to even it at 1-1.

We didn’t get another goal in the second period, but the Panthers carried that momentum in the third, both by keeping the pressure on Edmonton, but also by scoring the go-ahead goal. Evan Rodrigues intercepted an Evan Bouchard pass in the offensive zone and his shot took a slight deflection off of an Oiler to beat Stuart Skinner for his second in as many games and make it 2-1 Florida.

The shenanigans continued in the third, as Leon Draisaitl caught Aleksander Barkov high with an elbow, sending the Panthers captain to the dressing room and himself to the penalty box. Barkov didn’t return for the rest of the game, so would the Panthers struggle to stifle the Oilers in the final minutes without their top shutdown center?

Turns out Florida got something even better. After five straight penalty kills for Edmonton in this series, the Panthers finally got a goal with the man advantage in this series, and of course it was Rodrigues again, making it 3-1 with the deflection.

And even without Barkov, they managed to shutdown the Oilers for the rest of the third period. Ekblad sealed the deal with the empty net goal, and the Panthers won 4-1 to take a 2-0 series lead. Rodrigues had the two goals, Anton Lundell finished the game with two assists, and Bobrovsky only needed to stop 18 of 19 for the win in Game 2.