By the time the Eastern Conference final was over, New York Rangers stars Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin looked drained and out of gas. Now, to be fair, perhaps a lot of the reason is just how much Peter Laviolette leaned on his top guys over the course of an 82-game season and three playoff rounds, but let’s be honest, it largely had to do with the Florida Panthers.
With the puck, the back-to-back Eastern Conference champs are relentless and physical on the forecheck.
But without the puck, they’re relentless in their effort to get it back. Yes, they have offensive firepower on their top two lines, but they pride themselves on being defensive pains in the butts.
They’re fast, they’re mean, they’re suffocating and their lone objective is to play their opponents tough and, as Brandon Montour said a few times Monday, “make it hard.”
And over a seven-game series, that can have a lasting effect.
It sure did with the Rangers’ stars. They had nothing left and looked like they wanted no more.
Now comes the Edmonton Oilers and two of the best players in the world, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, buoyed by their individual desires to win a Stanley Cup after years of trying to carry the Oilers to the pinnacle and backed by a proud, hockey-rich nation that wants nothing more than to celebrate Canada’s first Stanley Cup in 31 years.
And while the Panthers, led by two-time Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov and one of the game’s most anonymous stud defensemen in Gustav Forsling, have done a tremendous job neutralizing their opponents’ best in the first three rounds, we all know McDavid and Draisaitl are different animals.
They’re the top two scorers in the NHL playoffs with a combined 59 points, and Zach Hyman’s 14 goals are four more than the next closest players (Draisaitl and Dallas’ Wyatt Johnston).
“We spent some time up there in Winnipeg and we saw a bunch of different rotations whether Leon Draisaitl plays with Connor McDavid or not, and that changes some of the dynamics of what you’ve got to prepare for,” said Panthers coach Paul Maurice, who saw a lot of the Oilers coaching the Jets in his previous stop. “But these two men, you can’t play a one-on-one game with them. They’re just too fast, too strong, too skilled. So it’s a five-man defensive game, and …”
That’s when Maurice interrupted himself as he was about to spew a bunch of coachspeak that’s often uttered about opposing stars and in particular McDavid and Draisaitl.
“Everything else that’s gonna come out of my mouth would be a cliché, but sometimes there’s a reason for it,” Maurice said. “Those clichés stick around because they’re true. They’re going to generate (offense) on their own and we have to be mindful of the position that we are in on change of possessions. But we can’t be in the passive position worrying about that all night.”
That’s because what makes Florida great is its aggressiveness. It’s also cliché, but McDavid and Draisaitl can’t light it up if they don’t have the puck, and there were large chunks of both the Bruins and Rangers series where the Panthers always had the puck and would go 10, 12 minutes without giving up shot attempts, let alone shots on goal.
The good news for the Panthers and Oilers is everything’s even.
The Panthers will have a seven-day break before Game 1 opens in South Florida on Saturday night. The Oilers will have a six-day break.
The Panthers, who unlike last season when they had several players secretly playing hurt, are largely healthy and haven’t sustained a known injury that at least knocked somebody from the lineup since Sam Bennett early in the Tampa Bay series. He returned in the Boston series and has simply been scintillating since. He’s healthy again, finally taking faceoffs again and scored four times in the Eastern Conference final.
Oh, and just a reminder about Bennett, the mean guy with the mean playoff beard, as Oilers fans know intimately, hates the Oilers stemming from his Calgary days squaring off in the Battle of Alberta.
Same with Matthew Tkachuk, who has been squeaky clean and disciplined throughout the postseason.
But with both teams having about a week to prepare, there’s plenty of time for each to recover and refocus for the next round. And unlike last year, the Panthers could not have been more appreciative to find out their opponent one day after advancing to the Stanley Cup Final.
“It seemed like a month last year we were waiting and sitting around,” Sam Reinhart said looking back to having to wait for Vegas to eliminate Dallas last Western Conference final after the Panthers swept the Hurricanes.
This should be a tremendous series with two offensive and defensive juggernauts. Yes, “defensive” is one thing Maurice stressed Monday when talking about his respect level for the Oilers.
We all know about their 37 percent power play and 3 1/2 goals per game, but Maurice sees a team that has advanced this far because of the structure Kris Knoblauch brought after he took over in November. Heck, they have a nearly 94 percent penalty kill in the playoffs and have allowed 2.61 goals per game.
Then add in the fact both goalies are playing exceptionally with Sergei Bobrovsky having allowed two goals or fewer in 10 of his past 11 starts and Stuart Skinner going 6-2 with a 1.88 goals-against average and .920 save percentage since briefly losing his job in the middle of the playoffs.
“Their defensive analytics are almost as good as ours and we’re a way better offensive team than people know as well,” Maurice said. “So it’s both sides of the puck. You have to defend against the whole group, (they have) an active back end, clearly superstars up front. And then we got some really good players, too.
“So it’s both sides of the puck equally weighted. We play an aggressive defensive game when we don’t have the puck and I think we attack pretty smartly when we do. I feel the same way about their game. Their defensive game is far stronger, far more structured than I think I hear when I’m watching the games or I read about.”
It doesn’t matter how much the Panthers focus on trying to shut down McDavid and Draisaitl, the reality is they can generate Grade A’s themselves. Just look at the way McDavid attacked Miro Heiskanen on the game-opening, highlight-reel goal in the conference championship-clinching game.
“Obviously they’ve shown it their whole career those are two players that not necessarily you can shut down but you can limit and you’ve got to make it tough on them,” Montour said. “Every team game plans against these guys, and they obviously still find their way. But you’ve got to make it tough on them. It’s going to be a long series.
“(McDavid’s) going to come up with more speed than most in this league. It’s tough to contain. Try to keep the best gap you can as possible and try to make it hard on them.”
Panthers players Carter Verhaeghe, Montour and Reinhart also noted Monday that it feels like the Oilers have an entire country behind them.
Maurice doesn’t totally buy it.
“Go to Calgary and ask. I don’t know what the answer is there,” Maurice cracked. “Are they cheering for the Oilers or are they cheering for the Panthers? Like go to Tampa. I don’t think they’re cheering for the Panthers. It will be electric in that town. It’s not a huge city. It’s a major city, … but it’s not New York.
“But every single person will be wired for their home team and be fired up and be electric and that’s the way you want it. You get to the Final, you want it to be a big stage. You want it to be important. So we’ll have two countries watching their teams play and it should be great.”
A lot was made for how rabid the crowd in Edmonton was in Game 6 of the Stars series. It was wild, both in the building during the game and on the street after the game when fans were able to chant and cheer along the glass of the visible press conference room.
Oilers diehards haven’t been this close to celebrating a Stanley Cup since the Oilers lost in Game 7 at Carolina in 2006, and the Panthers know they’ll bring the noise after both teams take six-hour flights back to Alberta’s capital for Games 3 and 4.
But first things first: the Oilers will have to hear a loud, passionate Panthers fan base as well.
“There’s lots of people watching hockey straight into June up there,” Maurice said. “And it’s a big part clearly in the fabric of life. If it was a 40,000-seat arena, they could probably fill it for an event like this. Every city thinks they got the loudest building. They do. And theirs is going to be loud, ours is going to be loud.
“We’re six weeks in, and it’s our second tour going to the Final. I don’t think it has much of an impact at all. Sometimes you get a little bit of a bump from being on the road. It’s just you. There’s that great camaraderie that it feels like, the crowd’s all jacked up. Feels like it’s just you. I just don’t think it’s something we haven’t felt already.”
It should be a great series with two teams not satisfied one iota with their conference crowns.
“There’s a little different belief this year,” Bennett said. “Last year we believed, but we were also happy to be there. This year it’s all business. We have one goal in mind, and that’s it.”