The biggest key to victory for the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3

With the Edmonton Oilers down 2-0 to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final, it’s quite apparent that they can’t just keep doing what they’re doing and hope that things change to turn this series around. They need to make adjustments if they want to come back. But what exactly are the adjustments that they need to make?

Colby Cohen talked about what Edmonton will need to do in Game 3 if they want to win on Daily Faceoff Live.

Colby Cohen: I think the first five, maybe eight minutes of Game 3 are going to be so incredibly important. The energy they can feed off of, the start, and matching the physicality of the Florida Panthers. And that doesn’t mean a big open ice hit. That means wall battle physically, that means below the dot physicality.

If Edmonton wants to win, they have to stop going East-West. They’re breaking pucks out, they’re going back and forth and back and forth. It’s given Florida all the time in the world to get their neutral zone set up and it’s given Edmonton a lot of issues. Every time Connor McDavid brings the puck into the zone, it’s on the outside portion of the offensive zone, so they’ve got to get playing North quicker. They’ve got to get their pace up, get through the neutral zone clean, and their offense will come. They have players who can hurt you, but they’re just too stuck right now in their own zone to play with the pace that they need to put Florida back on their heels.

And the last thing I’ll say is: they’re one of the very few teams that can put Florida back on their heels. They did it in game one for 40 minutes, now they just need to get back to that style to give them an opportunity to claw back into the series.

You can listen to the whole episode here…