SUNRISE, Fla. — You can slice Game 1 of this Stanley Cup Final however you’d like.
Zach Hyman has to keep his feet moving through the neutral zone on the Florida Panthers’ first goal. Darnell Nurse can’t let that pass get through his legs on the 2-0 goal.
Stuart Skinner needs to find a way to stop either of those Grade A’s, or to make a third of the miraculous saves that the guy at the other end, Sergei Bobrovsky, did.
But when you have the arsenal that the Edmonton Oilers have, and you lose 3-0 in a game where you absolutely cave the Florida Panthers in for the lion’s share of the 60 minutes, the credit lies with Bobrovsky.
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And the fault lies with all those Oilers who couldn’t find a way to solve him.
Or, perhaps, with that old leveler, the Hockey Gods.
“Maybe it was the Hockey Gods getting us back for that Game 6 (versus Dallas), where we probably didn’t deserve to win,” mused Connor McDavid after his first career Stanley Cup Final game ended with six shots on goal and a big, fat minus-2. “Tonight maybe we deserved at least one goal, maybe two, and we don’t find a way to get them.”
Hyman, who has scored 68 times this season regular season and playoffs combined, had two pucks within inches of the goal line that he failed to convert.
Adam Henrique and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each had breakaways they could not cash. McDavid had a game-high six shots on net, Evan Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl had four apiece.
What do they say about big game players? That they make big plays in big games?
On this night, that mantle falls to Bobrovsky.
“We’d certainly like to bear down and find a way to get one,” McDavid said. “Just make one more play. Something. Find something that we that weren’t able to find.”
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The Oilers generated enough offence to score five in this game. They were the better team, a fact nobody would argue.
On this night, however, Bobrovsky was impenetrable, stopping 33 shots, many in spectacular, acrobatic fashion.
Natural Stat Trick had the high danger scoring chances at 18-6 for Edmonton. Sportlogiq had the slot shots at 15-11 and the high danger chances at 14-10, each favouring Edmonton.
The fact is, Edmonton got goalied — exactly the way Dallas did in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final.
What goes around…
“I’ve had a lot of chances in my career,” said the veteran Hyman, “You continue to get them and eventually they’re going to go in. And when they go in, they go in in bunches.
“Sometimes you have an amazing look and it doesn’t go in, and sometimes it hits your shin pad and it goes in. The key is to not get frustrated. You just continue to play your game. That’s why it’s a seven-game series. Tonight we didn’t score on them and I’m pretty confident we’re capable of scoring.”
If the Oilers continue to control this series the way they did in Game 1, we would predict they’ll find their own heroes along the way. The power play went 0-for-3, but generated a ton of good chances.
Heading into Game 2, Edmonton has no doubt it can play with this Florida team, favoured by so many in the hockey world to win this series.
“I know how many people gave us a chance in this series,” McDavid said, “and I think we showed tonight that we can play with them. That’s a confidence booster for this group — but we know that our best can play with anybody. Disappointing.”
When you play this well and lose, there’s a school of thought that says you blew a big chance to get a leg up in the Stanley Cup Final.
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Then there’s that place where the Oilers’ heads will go to, where they tell themselves that this wasn’t near their best game, and it was too much at times for every Panther, save Bobrovsky.
Everyone’s game starts at a certain level in a series like this, and rises incrementally. If it doesn’t, you lose.
If Edmonton’s game gets better from here, we like their chances. A lot.
If, in the end, Bobrovsky’s game gets even better than this — and he can sustain it for four or five games — then hand him the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Because Goalie Bob was the MVP of Game 1, the Oilers merely Finalists.
