SCF Game 5 Statcap
Edmonton flips the script
Let’s cut right to it.
Remember how the Panthers basically won Game 3 over a span of 10 minutes? That’s kind of what happened here, except it was just pure special teams domination from the Oilers in this game. They scored an early shorthanded goal (again), added a power play marker early in the second period and got a 4-1 lead before the game was even halfway over. At that point, shots on goal were even at 16 apiece & it was a pretty low-event affair with Connor McDavid going nuclear on a few shifts to give them the edge.
Edmonton took three total shots the rest of the game. Part of it was nursing (no pun intended) a lead and the other half was Florida pressing them. They actually played more of the Panthers style in this game, especially with their exits. If they couldn’t counter, the puck was going up the boards more times than not & it took the Panthers awhile to make them pay, unlike earlier in the series when it seemed like everyone of those mistakes was ending up behind Stuart Skinner.
I expected Florida to play a little more conservative after the thumping they took in Game 4 & that was somewhat true. The forwards were doing a good job of keeping three-on-twos from developing & turning this into a dump-and-chase fest.
Likewise, Edmonton made the territorial game a stalemate early on. Both teams exchanged a couple of forecheck chances early on, but there wasn’t much happening until either team got a power play, then Edmonton started to take over.
Despite the four points, this was actually one of Connor McDavid’s lower microstat outputs of the playoffs, at least in terms of five-on-five offense & entries. Most of his events came from disruptive plays like this. Florida usually goes to work on turnovers in the zone like this, but McDavid gets back & the Panthers have to peel off for a line change instead. McDavid then gets to re-rack & the Oilers can go back on the attack again. Of course, he did score a goal & made a ridiculous setup on the power play, so he’s contributing in all areas right now.
This is how the first half of the game went. Once the score turned 4-1, Florida woke up and it got scary for the Oilers after Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s goal. There were still 15 minutes left at that point & Matthew Tkachuk was playing his best hockey since last year’s playoffs. I mentioned the Oilers exits earlier & it’s been an issue all series long. You can get away with this type of game in a playoff series when you don’t need a lot of possessions to score (or get unreal goaltending), but it’s a tough game to play. Florida forced the issue with how much they were pressing, though. Their defense were not letting any pucks get past the second layer.
Edmonton’s solution to this was to play the points more aggressively when the Panthers tried to cycle & keeping a very tight gap on them as they tried to re-enter the zone if they did get it out. Content to play dump-and-chase, Florida just kept going to work and was all over the Oilers exits no matter what adjustments they made. Here they tried to relieve pressure by having Draisaitl help Kulak on the clear & the puck still couldn’t get past the second layer. It was a chore for them trying to get any pucks out & Ekblad eventually got a chance at the end of this shift.
The flipside of this is the problem Edmonton ran into in Game 3, working to get the puck back over and over again just burns more time off the clock for Florida & eventually they ran out. They scored all three of their goals off the forecheck, but once it got to crunch time, Edmonton just played the keep-away game and wasn’t concerned with creating any offense. Although it is ironic that Florida was losing the five-on-five goal battle this series & ended up losing this game despite outscoring Edmonton 3-1 at even strength.
Individual Stats
This was very close to becoming Matthew Tkachuk’s signature game. He was involved in all three goals & his line dominated for 30 minutes. Only three Panther players had multiple scoring chances in this game. Tkachuk was one of them, he also setup both of Ekman-Larsson’s chances & Tarasenko’s chance which he created a rebound on. All of Florida’s high-danger passes were also setup by him & he had one of Florida’s three controlled entries that led to chances. I don’t know what it is, but whenever Evan Rodrigues gets moved to somebody’s line, the star player on it seems to wake up. Not to take anything away from Tkachuk, who was excellent in this game, but the two had a good connection on first two Florida goals.
If McDavid is getting three-point nights (non-empty net) in a game where he’s getting limited puck touches, then you can pretty much mark this series going to 7 games right now.
How about Connor Brown going full Magikarp to Gyarados this series? Well, maybe not that extreme. Still, this guy was a pretty good player before the injuries & a spark plug on the penalty kill at the very least. He seems to have found that form again because the guy is shot out of a rocket whenever there’s a loose puck & it’s been a real thorn in the side of Florida’s power play. He was also one of the few Oilers who had some success tilting the ice when the Panthers were pushing. He kind of plays every shift like he’s on the penalty kill, except he plays the pest instead of the “block every shot you can” role. Oh, he was also the only Oiler who had more than one shot assist in this game. I don’t know how that happened either.
Barkov’s line had a lot of shots not enough from the inside, Barkov with seven shot contributions with only one being a scoring chance & the line as a whole only generated two. Tkachuk’s performance almost made up for it, but that’s the difference in a close game like this.