The Florida Panthers blasted the Edmonton Oilers on Monday evening, winning Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final in convincing fashion by a 6-1 final score. Six different Panthers players found the back of the net, including Brad Marchand, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Reinhart, Aaron Ekblad, and Evan Rodrigues.
The Panthers now have the momentum on their side with a two-games-to-one series lead and the chance to take a 3-1 stranglehold should they earn a win in the upcoming Game 4.
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, however, said that he doesn’t believe in a carryover effect from game to game, via NHL.com.
“If you were to participate in that idea, you would think that you would be starting farther down the road than you do when the puck drops,” he said Tuesday. “Every game starts at zeros, and it’s a reset and it’s a mental reset. Doesn’t matter — we got beat 8-1 in Edmonton (in Game 4 of the Final last season) and then came back and played Game 5 here, and for me that was the best game we played in the entire playoffs and we lost the game.
“So, if you don’t participate in the idea of, ‘Hey, maybe there’s an advantage to be had,’ then you also don’t participate in the idea, ‘Hey, maybe you’ve got a disadvantage now that you can’t overcome.’ So, you just leave it completely and then start at zeros.”
Game 4 between the Panthers and Oilers is scheduled for Thursday evening starting at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice knows the Oilers want to respond in Game 4
While some teams and players likely do subscribe to the idea of momentum between games, Maurice isn’t among them and knows that the Oilers will be pressing to avoid falling into a two-game series deficit.
“Both teams are going to be wired (Thursday) night,” Maurice said. “You can’t stop it, so you need to have conserved today. For us, mentally, let the gate open a little bit tomorrow, do a little bit more video, get moving a little bit and you can start to feel it coming.
“But handling your day is something we’ve talked about just about every day, certainly in the playoffs.”
The Panthers and Oilers are playing in the first rematch of the same two teams in the Stanley Cup Final since the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins did so in 2008 and 2009.
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