The pressure is squarely on the Florida Panthers now
The Florida Panthers were just one win away from their first Stanley Cup after a 4-3 win in Game 3 in Edmonton. One week later, they somehow remain one win away, as the Edmonton Oilers rattled off wins in Games 4 and 5 to push this series to Game 6 back in Alberta.
Florida has not faced elimination in these playoffs. They easily got past the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games, knocked off the Boston Bruins in six and won three straight to advance past the New York Rangers in six games of the Eastern Conference Final.
At the end of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday, they will either be lifting the greatest trophy in sports or facing a do-or-die Game 7 for the first time.
So where is the pressure heading into Game 6? Oh, you can bet it is squarely on the shoulders of the Eastern Conference champions.
Tyler Yaremchuk: There were a bunch of shots, just watching the game on the TV broadcast, where they kept cutting to Paul Maurice, he looked tense. It was a look I hadn’t really seen from him yet… Pressure. It’s an interesting thing. We always talk about how momentum doesn’t shift from game to game. At the same time, Florida’s got to be clenching their sticks a little bit at this point, right?
Frank Seravalli: Oh, I think the pressure is 100 percent squarely on the Panthers. We talked a couple of days ago about desire against desperation. And now it’s time for the Panthers to have some desperation. You don’t want to feed this beast of the Oilers for one more game to then take it to Game 7 and it’s an absolute holy s**t moment. I think that’s what you want to try to avoid…
… I think the thousand-yard stare from Paul Maurice, it was interesting. Because if you’re in his shoes, and you have coached 1,848 NHL games, the most of anyone in NHL history who hasn’t won a Stanley Cup, you have to be sitting there going ‘What’s it going to take? How do we possibly get this job done? We’re right there, we were up 3-0 in this series.’
You can watch the full episode here: