EDMONTON, Alberta — Brad Marchand scored on a breakaway in double extra time and the defending champion Florida Panthers punched again towards the Edmonton Oilers in Recreation 2 of their Stanley Cup Closing rematch, successful 5-4 on Friday night time to even the sequence.
Marchand’s second objective of the night time 8:04 into the second OT allowed Florida to flee with a cut up after Corey Perry scored to tie it with 17.8 seconds left within the third interval and Stuart Skinner pulled for an additional attacker. Every of the primary two video games this closing has gone to extra time for the primary time since 2014 and simply the sixth in NHL historical past.
Very like final yr and the playoff run up to now, Sergei Bobrovsky was dialed in when he was wanted probably the most, making some unreal saves whereas stopping 42 of the 46 pictures he confronted. His teammates supplied the required objective help.
Together with Marchand, Sam Bennett scored his postseason-leading thirteenth objective and NHL report twelfth on the street. Seth Jones scored right into a wide-open web after some spectacular tic-tac-toe passing, and fellow defenseman Dmitry Kulikov tied it with a shot by site visitors that Stuart Skinner virtually definitely didn’t see.
Kulikov’s objective got here after Florida managed play for a number of minutes within the second, hemming Edmonton in its zone shift after shift and piling up a 34-13 benefit in shot makes an attempt in the course of the interval. Marchand’s OT objective was his tenth profession objective within the closing to guide all lively gamers.
Recreation 3 is Monday night time because the groups traverse the continent and play shifts to Dawn.
The Panthers wrested home-ice benefit away from the Oilers by splitting the primary two, rebounding from a Recreation 1 extra time loss and asserting they will not go quietly towards Draisaitl and Connor McDavid trying like they will do every little thing of their energy to hoist the Cup for the primary time.
After all, these stars had their moments. They assisted on Evan Bouchard’s objective when coach Kris Knoblauch put them on the ice collectively, and McDavid stickhandled by a number of defenders in highlight-reel vogue to arrange Draisaitl scoring on the facility play.
There have been a variety of these — 10 in complete — after officers whistled 14 penalties, together with three within the first 4 minutes. Every group had a couple of calls it was not proud of, although most of that evened out over the course of the sport.