The Hockey PDOcast - Post Game Reactions and Takeaways Following Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to sort through everything they saw in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey Pideo cast with your host, Dmitri Filippović. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name's Dimitra Filippovich and joining me here in studio, fresh off of game one of the Stanley Cup final, my good buddy Thomas Trans, Tom. What's going on, man? An overtime thriller. Yeah, it seems like whenever you and I get together in the studio are here to watch one of these playoff games were treated with a classic, and usually an overtime at that. So, I don't know if it's that I enjoy doing these, or that I enjoy watching games in the studio. I hope you enjoy doing Or that I enjoy hanging out with you so much, but I feel like we've been treated to an exceptional seven, eight months of hockey. Like, dating back to the Four Nations face off, I genuinely feel thrilled watching most of these games.

Like, it's a thrilling feeling. I'm so amped up throughout the game. You know, there were some things that I didn't love about this one, the work of the linespeople in particular, frustrated me on occasion. Later on, I'm going to clear out for you and just let you cook on the lines. It's fine. You brought that up like 14 times, genuinely. the game. It was a little distracting. I thought the flow of the first period was interrupted by a little bit of a ref show. But also we got huge emotional swings in the first period. Then you got that

huge Panthers push in the second. Then you had the Oilers really figuring it out in the third period just a little bit, beginning to break the Panthers forecheck with a little bit more regularity, gusto, aggression, beginning to use the middle of the ice a little bit more on breakouts, which I think was essential. And I thought the Bouchard chance in overtime was like the perfect example of it where you make that extra pass, that one extra pass.

It feels high risk. The whole thing is dicey, but man, the amount of space that it creates for you if you do it. That's how you got to attack the Panthers. And I sort of come away from this game thinking, you know, I think I come away from this game.

And if I was to sort of put like the headline on what I thought, or my biggest takeaway from game one, I just feel like dry-sidal at 100% or whatever percentage far greater than the 30% he was at or 20% that he was at in the Stanley Cup final last year. That's the biggest difference. We can talk about Seth Jones. We can talk about Walman. We can talk about Klingberg.

We can talk about subtracting Holloway. We can talk about whatever changes we want. Schmidt versus OEL, whatever we want. Healthy dry-sidl is the biggest change for either team in this series. and I think that ultimately shaped the outcome. He scored the first goal in this game. He scored the last goal in this game. And, you know, I think in a lot of ways, dictated,

so dictate is their wrong word, because I think the Panthers' Forecheck dictated the tempo of this game. But I think Dreysaitles' brilliance, his excellence, his impact, the way that he was able to honestly just nerf the Ekblad Forsling pair, the way that they used him sort of flitting between,

lines, all of their most effective lines, all of their most effective sequences, all of their biggest dog moments in this game one win felt like they came off of Drysaitle's stick or off of Drysidle's big frame protecting the puck down. Yeah, I thought the first goal was a great example, right? Because he winds up benefiting off of the second chance, or third chance rebound following the cap and rebound that preceded it. But it all starts because he goes down low. He takes a big hit from Forrestling, then knocks him down. Yeah. He gets back up, Chuck's in there. It's really a one-on-two. in that instance, he's able to come away with the puck, sends a cross-ice to Walman and initiates that sequence.

He had a couple others where he was just backtracking with stick lift, retrieve possession. He had one play, I forget what it, it all blends together and after watching essentially four periods of just back and forth hockey, but one where he kind of kept it in at the offensive zone, blue line sent it down to McDavid. McDavid was able to bring it out.

And Boerowski got his shoulder on it, but resulted in a great chance, kind of out of nothing. I thought he was brilliant. His game obviously caps it with the overtime winner. We can break down that sequence. it's not a surprise or a new occurrence to anyone that watches Oilers games, but I mentioned this to you at the start of this one, and then we saw probably 25 instances of it throughout,

this ongoing bit of no player ever in the history of hockey getting kicked out of face-off draws more often than Leon Dreisel. And even when he doesn't get kicked out, they can seemingly never have a normal puck drop from the official. It's always like a delayed 20-second back and forth where he warns him, and then Andre Seidel's just asking for him to drop the puck, and then they fainted again, and then he talks to them, and then finally they drop it.

And I think that's partly to go along with a lot of the icings that I think the Panthers Forecheck was creating from the Oilers D that made it feel a little bit disjointed. But if anything, especially as we got into overtime, really just amped up the anticipation of this game, right? Give it a baseball feel where you have a lot of opportunity to marinate on the moment. Yeah. And that's great for our purposes, gives us a chance to catch our breath,

to kind of figure out what's going on. We're here in studio. We're going to try to gather our thoughts. We're recording right after the conclusion of the game one. We're going to be doing this, as we said last week, after every one of these games to Stanley Cup final, hopefully if this one was any indication,

we get six more of these. It's going to be a really fun ride, so hopefully everyone comes along with us for it. We were thinking to spruce up this idea, since we're going to be doing between four to seven of these, and we're going to be talking about the two same teams, the same matchup, kind of breaking it down into segments,

kind of making a little game out of it. Since it's a game recap, and it's right after the fact, and I think we're going to work our way through it as we go along ourselves, to kind of encapsulate what we saw and really give essentially anyone that either come away from it thinking, all right, I need to know what happened there because it was all such a flurry and such a whirlwind or wasn't able to catch it or jumped in later,

what have you, the kind of the spark notes version of what happened in this game. Do you want to start? This is a good one. Let's start with the PTOCast three stars. And I haven't even seen what the actual official NHL ones were. Maybe you can pull it up while we're talking. But I think that's going to be a really fun way for us to start this conversation with. and let's go in order.

Do you want to go with a third star? Do you want to build up the drama rather than starting with the first one? Do you want to know who the real first, second, third are, or do you want to compare it at the end? Okay, give it to me. Well, no, why don't you pick the three? We'll talk about them.

All right, and then at the end, we'll compare it to the official. All right, I'll give you the third star. Okay. I don't know if this one's going to surprise you. I thought Evan Bouchard had a phenomenal game. Yeah. Jake Walman is my third star. Agreed.

2307, 12 shot attempts of his own. He blocked four shots. you could see, and he's blocked so many big ones throughout this post he's a run for the Oilers. He had a number throughout this game where they'd show him on the bench after and he's like clearly in significant distress. Held together by just trying to keep it together, then coming right back out there and showing no oil effects during a gameplay. He had that huge hit and it looked like it really hurt him. Yep. Who was that hit on?

That was hit on, anyway, one of the Panthers top six forwards. And it was just like a massive hit, leveled him in the corner. It looked like it hurt him more. That's probably one of the bad signs. I'd say I take out of game one for the Oilers despite the victory is I think you could see how much the Walman irrational confidence factor matters for them But he's been playing so well this postseason

that assuming how I feel like that's going to continue I feel like this is just in his bag right now I agree but the fact that after one game you know he's look maybe he's a guy maybe he just needs it taped up maybe a couple days of rest will do him a world of good but they need him and I thought that was abundantly clear tonight

when he was, you know, a Marauder out there. I mean, he had that awesome sequence at the offensive blue saving the puck, keeping it in. Yeah, the overtime staying. I mean, he got dropped to his feet but still kept control, passed it over to her teammate. His 5-1-5 minutes shot 16-7, Oilers, 66% of the expected goals. I thought, you know, a marauder is a great way to describe it,

because there were a number of times where you'd look up and he would just be joining the rush or getting involved and just being in space and then extending the play for them. just a couple really dynamic sequences from them. And you hit on this last week when we kind of preview the series, right? Just the importance for him and Bouchard, you could see when the Oilers bogged down in this game in that second period in particular. It was a lot of what we've seen the Panthers do during those second periods with long change.

And we saw it really in the first couple minutes of this overtime as well. Where they came out with a push and they were just in the offensive zone, kind of throwing everything at the net. And I think we also saw it in the middle stanza. Like the Oilers then took over for about eight minutes. but then the Panthers had this other push where it just felt like so many minutes, like three or four minutes passed without the Oilers touching the puck inside the Panthers like blue line inside the Panthers zone.

And I thought that that was like a less aggressive or assertive version of it for the Panthers. But nonetheless, their ability to control the game and dictate the tempo of this, I thought was clear. Like I thought one of one wild takeaway I have from this game is I just thought the Panthers forecheck dictated the look and feel and and how this game was played. And I thought the sequences where the Oilers were actually able to break out and get out of their own zone clean were relatively few and far between, although they did manage it twice in consecutive shifts leading up to the Acombe game tying goal. And, you know, I don't want to do the Ryan. and Rissillo, like, I'm actually higher on them now thing.

But the, the fact that the Oilers were able to win a game in which it felt like the Panthers imposed their preferred style or feel on the game, I do think is, in the big picture of this series, probably a pretty good sign for Edmonton because presumably they're going to have games where they're able to get off, get off rush chances at a somewhat greater clip than they did tonight. Yeah, I think so. I mean, we were talking about this last week, right, where it feels like every Oilers series throughout this run,

regardless of what the other team is going for them, everything is framed through the lens of what the Oilers can do and how you sort of try to combat that or limit what McDavid and Drysidal can do and what they're doing off the rush. And the thing the Panthers are going for them is that they similarly do that to opposing teams where it's that forecheck and like how you negate that and sort of you spend so much of your energy in time. I'm preoccupied with that.

And so the way they balanced that in this game was really interesting. I thought, you know, whenever they tried to go off the wall or kind of going with the safe play out of the zone, the Panthers D were just pinching, sitting all over that, and then they would get hemmed in for these extended sequences kind of stuck in the mud. And I think the stats reflected that, right? They do the during their mission, they do the Sportologic, stat packs, and through 40 minutes, the rush chances were 5-3 for the Panthers. And I believe one of those was a McDavid, two-on-one on the PK where he hit it off the post after a block pass.

That was an unbelievably powerful sequence, by the way. And the other one was the Arbetson three-two goal, of course. But there were very few instances in the first 40 minutes where that's exactly how they were beating the Golden Knights and the stars previously. And they just weren't really able to get out that way. In the overtime, in particular, I thought you saw it really open up. There were a couple kind of hairy white-knuckling sequences, but we saw the Kaepininin' Mad Dash where he kind of got it off the side of the post. Then we saw the Bushyard one you mentioned against Forsling where he had a really nice sort of individual foray in alone against

Bobrovsky. And those are the types of efforts where getting it into the middle, sometimes punting it out with those high lobs the way the Leafs were doing in round two, just trying to make some of these high-risk plays acknowledging there is risk involved if you turn it over because that's going to open up the ice and really fuel what you need to do to attack. Otherwise, kind of trying to play this conservative game, I think it's just going to be a death by a thousand cuts for them. And so that would be if I were, Chris, knoblock and running the video session after this game one, that'd be the thing I'd be tried and still, like, doubling down. You have the horses to do so now. We talk about this blue line,

what Walman's added to it, what Klingberg did, what Bouchard's been doing this entire postseason. I feel like you need to double and triple down on that as opposed to some of the other stuff that I thought got them to trouble throughout the sequences this game. If you're trying to break out on the wall against the Panthers, you are dead. You are dead immediately. You have to use the middle of the ice, and that's where danger lies. It is so much easier for someone like me to say than it is for NHL players to execute it against the withering persistence of the Panther stress game. But truly, just watch these games. And every time the Edmond & Oilers use the middle of the ice to get out of their zone,

just like we saw with the Maple Leafs, right? And again, very difficult to do. But when you're able to use that sort of center ice low, you're actually able to attack them with speed. And often they are overcommitted, right? They're so committed to the bit of putting pressure on you and forcing you. into making mistakes, that there are holes. There are ways to get home against them if you're able to break that initial press. But obviously, the consequences of failure are through the roof,

given the way this Panthers team capitalizes on mistakes. Okay, so five, three rush chances through 40 minutes. Would you say four of them were Sam Bennett's? Was it really four three Sam Bennett rush chances? Yeah, I would. Just one final note on the Oilers D and how this relates to this conversation before we do. That was a great one. Thank you.

Thank you for taking that. right out of my mouth and really eliminating all suspense. The Oilers have the personnel to do so. You know, was it the first goal that kind of initiated the sequence with the goalie interference challenge and then the power play goals that ensued where Jack Hahn brought this up on our X's and O's preview last week. One of the issues with Ekholm coming back and Ekholm had a big game again, obviously scores the tying goal that sends us to overtime, is the trickle-down effect on the pairings,

whether it's Kulak playing with Nurse or on that first goal, he was actually out on the ice with Walman, and that burned them because it's two lefties. He's all of a Kulak's on the right side. He's having to go up the wall on his backhand. The Panthers are all over that, and then that leads to that goal. Okay, Sam Bennett is the second star indeed.

He scores the two goals, the first one. You were cackling about this in studio, his evil genius in terms of doing just enough to plant the seat of death, in the officials on the review that, yeah, it was Kulak, Skate, or whatever, that tripped him just enough that initiated or created the contact that sent him into Skinner. It was clear. He fell.

He knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly what he was doing. Went into Skinner at the right time. And then, to add insult to injury, the Verheaghi shot actually goes off of Bennett's skate and gives him the goal. He scores the rush goal to make it 3-1 in the second period. And then just his insistence on sticking to the bit on the Echholm 3-3 goal, go back. back and watch it. He goes through the crease and bumps

Mabrovsky. It's almost like he got programmed as a robot to always go through the crease and bump the goalie and initiate some sort of 50-50 contact. And unfortunately, part of the specs wasn't telling you which goalie to do that to. And so he did it to his own goalie as well. And so really, I think he was at least partly responsible for three of the goals in this game. Now, obviously, as a second star, that should be part of his resume. But I thought it was an incredibly on-brand game. And you could see

his impact as well, right? One of our questions heading into the series was, we presume the Oilers are going to be trying to hunt their offensive players against that line at home in terms of that matchup looking to create offense against them because they overextend themselves. They get so aggressive in the offensive zone on the forecheck. Would they be able to capitalize on that? I think they wound up two-two in five-on-five goals in this game. I thought they were their best line, though. Certainly regardless of that, they were creating the most. Bennett had at least four or five chances of his zone. I thought his speed was very prevalent in terms of that middle lane drive pushing the Oilers D back.

It helped that entry on the Power Play helped set up the Schmidt to Marchand power play goal that ensued. And so I thought he was awesome in this game. It led to Elliot Freeman talking about him potentially being the Kahn's Mithe for the Panthers that they are able to win this series. I think that's a perfectly good take. He's scored so many big goals. You know what?

You know what that accidentally on purpose, I got tripped by Coolax skate moment reminded me of. You know in the film 7, when Morgan Freeman opens the box and radios to helicopter and tells everyone to stay away? Like whatever you hear, stay away. John Doe has the upper hand.

It's like Sam Bennett has the upper hand. That was the moment we opened the box where it's like, oh no, this master manipulator is holding the cards. At the end of the day, it's always Sam Bennett. And the opposing goalie's head is always in the box. Sorry, spoilers for that movie. He has spoilers for the 1993 classic.

Yes. Yeah, I thought that line was dynamite for them. I thought, listen, for Hagee had the two assists, he had the nice play to spring, the Schmidt to Bennett Rush goal. He could have done better on a lot of opportunities. A lot of pock touches were either babbled or he'd hold on to it just long enough for an oiler stick to get away. The one where the ref tripped Klingberg and he didn't get a shot off? Yeah.

I mean, there were a lot of chances at chances that over a seven game series, for Hage's going to do better on, then he managed in game one. Well, he has been very, very inefficient, although he was awesome. him against the hurricanes and he's going to score some goals certainly but yeah it's one of those infuriating things run the one hand he's just always in high danger areas of the ice with a puck on a stick and so you come away from it with this lasting impression of his involvement but then you actually think about it for a second and you're like how many of those actually resulted in anything and that's been a recurring problem for them the first star is it a cop-out for me to just give it to

the battery on the game winning goal macdavid and dry sidle splitting it 50-50 going up to the throne and and lifting it together McDavid and Drys Idol. I couldn't split them. I wanted to include Walman and Bennett on this list just from the themes of the game, but I thought both were incredible. We saw Knoblock pretty early on,

go back to loading them up. They dominated in those minutes and created a bunch, obviously. Let's break down the game-winning goal because I thought there was some interesting stuff and you particularly had an observation in the fallout of it in terms of McDavid's reaction

and kind of what you took away from that. But I thought that was brilliant, right? because they had a couple of powerplay opportunities, including a four-on-three early, and it was pretty stagnant for the most part. I thought the four-on-three was especially bad. They kind of seemed discombobulated, mostly I think, by the fact that if you go back

and watch the 5-1-4s, the Panthers did such a good job of stapling someone to dry-sidal and putting kind of the seed of doubt that there's someone always here to either block the shot or immediately smother him or be close enough to take away that option, whether it was Foresling blocking a couple of them or Reinhardt fronting him occasionally.

and then eventually, and this is kind of executing within that chaos that the Panthers present, this is the best example of that, right? Where it's a couple of just, first it's McDavid, just carving through the neutral zone, getting the entry. And then all of a sudden, it's a couple touches, Bouchard, R&H, Perry. The R&H touch, you know, sort of. On the wall, kind of no look. Using your back, actually both him and Perry, you show a high pressure PK your back, and that's a trigger where they're always going to attack.

And R&H used that perfectly to create the space required to make the high to low pass. And then it was a really nifty pop pass from Corey Perry to McDavid. And you'll notice, so McDavid then sets up Drysidal who beats Bobrovsky makes no mistake. And he does the classic point where, you know, you often see a goal scorer do it to the passer. And I thought it was fascinating that McDavid immediately turned. away from Drysidal and pointed at Perry for the pop pass. It was like you needed a bunch of skilled plays to just sort of rearrange the pieces on the board, but then you needed one quick moment to really spring them and create that two-on-one

down low. And that's what that Perry pop pass did and McDavid immediately identified it. And just went and gave, he gave Corey Perry the goal scorer's point. you know, Perry, I think, in that role, like in the Heimann role, there's an element to which, you know, like the Wayne Gretzky of Alex Chasons, like the apex version of the Oilers power play that first sort of broke out as one of the best we'd ever seen before they signed Zach Heimann from Toronto, like during the pandemic, right? Or right before the pandemic where all of a sudden we realized how special Oilers' PP1 was. and I suppose it's like lost a footnote in history that it was originally Alex Jason as like the big righty net front guy on that power play. And, you know, there's shades to which you throw Perry into that spot with Hyman

lost to the Oilers for this series. And man, can he ever do it? That was just such a brilliant play and such a critical moment in the game. And I loved McDavid's immediate recognition of just how critical sort of his touch had been in terms of unlocking this panthers pressure power pk. I loved all of the exchanges involving Corey Perry and Erdekblad. Oh, so good.

There was sprinkled throughout this game. There was one instance in particular where... He seemed to be calling him boy. Well, okay, which is hilarious because, listen, I've been critical of Arneckblad. I think there's a lot of things you can say about him as a player. One thing I would never describe him as is a boy, considering he literally just had a full-grown beard

that I think anyone would be envious of by the time he was a teenager. And in fact, I think he just skipped that phase of He was just instantly a grown man. I think the OHL permitted him to compete at the age of 14 of 11. This guy's 27. Yeah, they were like, he was like three. They were just like, yeah, you're ready physically to compete in the OHL. It's really funny because the first beer you mentioned kind of the refs show a little bit.

And I think all those individual infractions and calls are right for the most part. But then when we apply the context of the game, it's like we don't really want it turning into this just bogged down, disjointed back and forth on special teams. And then within that chaos, there was this one sequence where the Oilers have it in the offensive zone. It's on the opposite side of the ice. You look over on the side of the net. Echblad and Perrier just engaged in like some sort of a knife fight or something involved. And the refs are just like, you know what?

These guys just coexist in their own universe. I'm just going to allow this. I'm going to turn around and pretend this isn't happening and just focus on the play. And I think that's the right call. And I imagine we're going to see a lot more between these two as a series goes on. These two teams know how to win, man. You know, I know the Oilers don't have the rings to show for it. The Panthers won the series last year,

but we should have no doubt about the Oilers. Like, they are tried and tested in terms of their playoff medal, you know, without the championship to show for it yet. But I think if you, and you saw it. Like, you saw it with the, you know, Oilers landing that Haymaker early, the grit that Drysidal had to show to create that opportunity in the first place. And then the way that the Panthers engineered way back into that game with, you know, chicanery, like raw, cynical chicanery of the highest order.

You know, it's a Bennett goal. It's a Marchand goal. You've got, you know, Perry and Kane and all these guys. It's tough hockey. These teams know how to win. They know how to get the whistles. They know how to play the game. And I don't just mean the game on the ice, right?

And I think if you're going to call the game the way it's played in the first, both of these teams are more than happy to oblige you in terms of the referees. And I just don't want to see too much of that as this series goes along. It's interesting drama. I have a ton of respect for how both of these teams sort of comport themselves, but it's just not what I ultimately want to watch, especially when the actual hockey that these two teams are playing is of this caliber. You know, it's interesting about just to close the loop on the three stars and talk a little bit more about McDavid and Drysidal, I thought the matchups were interesting.

And maybe partly this was because of the way Noblock played them together for what, 13, 14 minutes or so at 515. But they actually wound up playing more against the Jones Mekla pair. And you mentioned Forsley and Eckblatt and their numbers were brutal in terms of their on ice impacts in this game. And they really got done in in particular by Dreisidal when he was out there with Cap and and Kane. and then that Walman-Klingberg pair really tilting the ice. I think shots were like 10-0 or something in those head-to-head minutes. Actually, despite being on the ice for those goals against and the ugly shot metrics, I thought Forzling was dynamite on defending one-on-one entries against McDavid-and-dry-settled,

or at least three-off, for instance, as I can recall, where it just one-on-one along the boards, and he kind of pokes it away or stops them in their tracks and allows the Panthers to catch up. And then that's why I thought it was very fitting that on the tying three-three goal, Nobloch gets McDavid out there against the Schmidt-Kulikov pair. He attacks Kulikov on the right side is able to get down

and then eventually kind of floated across the ice to echo. And that was huge, just initiating some of those easy entries into offense that I think they were struggling to come by up until that point of the game. Yeah, and interestingly, it's not like the it's not like the Panthers Wedge was like playing in terms of hurting

you know, McDavid or Drysidal effectively into the wall and into a, you know, surfing defender at the blue line. Like, that's not how the Oilers were being denied entry to the zone time after time. It was the stick on puck game. It was a stick on puck clinic. That's such so well put. And I also think Matthew Kachuk in particular in the first 40 minutes really shaped a lot of this game with just a series of absolute world-class reads.

He's just reading the play and then cutting it off. unbelievable. The amount of interceptions or the amount of Oilers' possessions that died, not even on bad passes or like careless passes or poor puck management decisions, but just on world-class reads from a guy who's an exceptional playmaker himself and, you know, in this environment with that much will to win is able to apply it to a part of the game that we don't always see him be that dominant in. I thought that was a fantastic sort of, you know, like B-plot element to this game. I thought Kachuk's first 40 minutes defensively were as high level as I've seen from him. Yeah, I thought McDavid, I mean, it's kind of ironic that, you know, he gets the two assists.

He sets up the game winner. He doesn't actually score himself. Drexedal gets the two goals. He easily could have three or four goals in this game based on the quality of chances. He rings one off the bar. He had a couple that sort of squeaked by Bobrovsky, I thought. Barowski gives up the four goals against. I know that I just said, like there were periods where the Oilers weren't really playing their game

and generating chances, particularly off the rush. But man, one thing I think they have to feel good about is the trouble, I think, they were posing about Broowski, right? And sure enough, on the first goal, on the dry sight, he'll rebound. It's a Walman shot from the point that he wasn't able to catch. I feel like that sort of dictated their game plan maybe in the overtime a little bit, because I was sort of noting to you while we were watching it, that I didn't love some of the shot selection from the Oilers in the offensive zone in OT.

It felt like they were sort of bombing from the. point and just playing for the rebound game. But I think he astutely kind of retorted that it was probably because they were noticing that Bobrovsky was really struggling. He was coughing out some rebounds. There were probably six or seven pucks in this game that I think beat him and probably could have gone in but didn't for whatever reason. Ultimately only four of them do.

And so that was part of the logic in terms of what they were trying to accomplish offensively. And I imagine we'll see more of it. I'm still not sure that's the optimal way to go because we've seen in a series and they certainly have more talented players in the hurricane. gains. But when the Panthers get set defensively, I think they're going to be pretty comfortable conceding a lot of those shots from distance. The Oilers probably need to be more deliberate about attacking and getting to the inside and they have the players to do so rather than settling.

And so on a night where Bobrovsky's maybe a bit more clean with some of his reads and rebounds, maybe that'll happen. But I'd like to see that more from them. But obviously, I mean, in a game where you score four goals and have whatever, nearly 50 shots or whatever they did, this is nitpicking on my part. Yeah. And I also thought it really settled in. to being central to their game plan in overtime, as opposed to it being something we saw. Yeah, they didn't come out of the gate trying to do it. Now, they didn't have the puck in the second period,

so perhaps we, yeah, I don't think that was like a hallmark of their strategy so much as an adjustment after they realized that there was loose change to be picked up. What was sort of funny was the Oilers did have a lot of moments in this game where they were able to dig pucks out of dirty areas and sort of continue their cycle game, something that I think they do better than anybody else.

but in the moments where they really started shooting from the point, I thought the Panthers were absolutely dominant on boxouts. There was nothing in the middle of the ice in the early stages of that overtime when I felt like the Oilers attack became a little more perimeter and point shot-based. All right, buddy, let's take our break here, and then we come back, we're to close out and go through the rest of our thoughts from this thriller in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final. You're listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.

All right, we're back here on the Hockeypediodcast, joined by Thomas Trans. we're doing our game one post game from the Stanley Cup final. Here's a question for you. We obviously know the Oilers won this game and go up 1-0 at home as they're supposed to do. I was thinking as we're going throughout it, particularly with the Panthers up 3-1 and then 3-2 in the third, the relative importance of this game, right? Obviously, each game is going to be important in the Stanley Cup final. I did feel like, and maybe this would be the Panthers lamenting it especially so heading out of this one.

We've seen them bounce back certainly in the postseason. They went down 2-0 and almost 3-0. nothing really against the Leafs in round two. But the value this win would have had for them just in terms of not only wrangling back home ice and stealing a game in Edmonton, but just the way I thought they were executing through 40 in terms of dictating that tempo and kind of making it their game because you know that there's going to be an explosion coming from the Oilers where it's just a track meet and they've got a runway towards the net later on in this series. For the Oilers, this isn't an analytical thing at all, although I guess there is a stat about

back it up, but just the way they've performed these past two seasons as the postseason series have progressed and how the adjustments they've made and when they lock in and tighten up what it looks like from games four to seven in particular, it wouldn't have been ideal to blow game one at home, but I would have felt like, all right, you know, I'm sure we're going to see something better in game two and this won't be necessarily indicative of how the series goes. I did feel like this is a big blown opportunity for the Panthers to let this one go beyond just obviously whenever you blow a two-goal lead on the road, it's going to hurt a little bit extra. but in particular just the dynamics of this series and how this game unfolded.

Yeah, and I suppose I'm of two minds. I mean, the Oilers still were able to generate aside from the second period in a game that I felt like was contested on the Panthers terms more than it was contested on their own. On the other hand, the fact that the Panthers Four check played was so effective, disrupted the Oilers breakout to the extent that it did is also something that I'm sure Paul Maurice will be able to show in a video session tomorrow. and have his team feeling pretty good about themselves and their overall game plan. So it's a tough one for me to dictate. I think I come away from this game with completely convinced that this is still going long.

Right. So I don't feel like I feel like both of these teams are so cagey and have been through so much already across the, you know, the multi-year runs now that I don't think either team was going to panic. and I don't think a game one result in OT, whether it's painful to blow the lead or, you know, spiriting to come back from it. Like, I just don't think it's going to knock either team off stride. And I think both teams will feel pretty good about their performance tonight and probably should. I honestly, the shot clock was a little deceptive, but I think this was a very tightly contested game. This deserved to be a one-goal game. This was not a knockout punch for either side.

No, it wasn't. I thought the, you know, just talking about the dogs and we all often compliment the, Panthers particularly that third line and they had their moments in this game. I thought some of the role players are supporting guys. The Oilers really had a lot of flashes of that throughout. He mentioned the Perry play on the OT winner. I thought Capitan was all over and he had a couple assists, but he had that overtime rush as well, but he only wanted earlier.

But Colson was an animal. You could see some of the limitations with puck on stick, where it's either the decision-making or the ability to execute. He rushed a couple decisions, both of them coming on. He wants so many battles, in particular that one where he just put his shoulder down and took us forcing to the net and nearly forced it in through sheer will. I thought plays like that if you're getting that from Pokkosen, you have to love it. He was separating defenders from Pox and separating them with the sorts of hits that are going to have, are going to be covered by icebags tonight. You know what I mean?

They're not the hits that are going to be seen necessarily on, you know, a sports net connected. But they are the hits that, you know, I guarantee you some Panthers defenders are going to be winning. Winston about for this evening at least. Well, and that 3-2 goal, not just getting them back in it after being down two and being a little shell-shocked, you go through the mechanics of it and it's a quick up from Bouchard, which we love to see up the middle. It's Parkhosen attacking downhill. He listened to what I just said about how difficult it was challenging for his thing,

and he kind of nudges towards Ekblad's side who retreats and he's able to enter. And then the little flash screen cutting across, it opens it up for Arvinson. That was a really high-eke-up play. off the rush. And that's a goal that the Oilers generate, obviously, with other top guys on the ice, but against forcing and Barcov in those minutes. And if you get any of those over the course of a series, you're going to be, you're going to be incredibly happy. And so I thought that was a huge development. Now, I think I, I actually want to see more Pod Colson. I sort of, if I had one thing that worried me a little bit about the Oilers performance in this game, more, more than anything else, I think it was just the

amount of Trent Frederick minutes we got. The fact that... Yeah, we got to talk about this. Yeah, the fact that even on home ice, the Oilers had him play, you know, eight minutes, basically eight and a half minutes against Lundell and the Bennett line. I think they were pretty lucky to escape with their hides in those minutes. And I don't really understand why that line would be playing so much more. in aggregate ice time than then Pod Colson and Capitan,

just given what Pod Colson and Capitan are bringing to the table physically and in terms of being far more reliable on touches. So many, the Panthers leap at opportunities so well, and they stretch any inch you give them into, you know, forget a mile, 100 miles of like just shift after shift persistent pressure that I think having, you know, You saw it on what was at the, that was the third Panthers goal, the Sam Bennett goal, which was really created off of a play, you know, where really all it has to, all the puck has to do is room around back to the point. Yep.

And Bennett just can't quite get enough on it. Bennett's able to harass Frederick into a poor play. Puck goes the other way. Panthers beat them down the ice. I mean, he had a truly delusional exit attempt in the third period, I believe, where he's going up the middle of the ice and he tries to like do one of those plays that are reserved. for like the top 1% of the league. We're kind of like playing it to yourself over a defender's stick and then going into space and attacking.

And that immediately gets picked off and led to, I think, a glorious Lucerne enchan. They really could have put the game away while it was still 3-2, I believe. And so that would have been a nightmare. His touches have been kind of silent killers, right? Yeah. Because there's very few where you can like directly chase it back to this is what led to the goal against.

But it's a lot of ones. It's almost the anti-Barkov. Right. Every little Barkov touch is designed to, slightly by a fraction, improve the terms and the play for his team. And in this one, it's like all these ones that are subtracting just a little bit, and that adds up in the aggregate, and there were a number of those in this game. I've always thought of that as the concept as like a drip.

It's just a drip here. It's just a drip there. But you accumulate enough of them, and you've got a full glass of water, right? I've always thought of sort of the idea of just like a boat slowly taking on water, and that's sort of the game that Frederick had tonight. I thought the Panthers were, it was noticeable. You know, they scored the most goals directly off of offensive zone draw wins in this postseason. And they didn't do so in this game, but they set up a number of ones off a clean offensive draw win,

where they would do like interchange the wingers and the guy would open up in the middle of the circle and essentially get a good look off. I thought they got four or five opportunities off of that. So that would be an exploitable thing for them moving forward and something. the Oilers are certainly going to have to tighten up on. I mean, Barkov had a number of in-tight opportunities just kind of fell short where he wasn't able to execute on, and that's going to have to improve for them. So I think that's partly why the shot total as well was so skewed in the Oilers' favor. I thought the Panthers kind of left a little off the table.

They're on the table. Yeah, they also cleaned up as a team in the circle, right? I mean, it was pretty lopsided, and that sort of added. adds to the sharpness of that particular weapon for Florida. Yeah. Who are the three stars, by the way? Oh, three stars, in fact, you have Bennett and Drysidal 2-1. There you go.

There's a court. I'm going to assume Walman did not get the love. Caputinan. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he had an awesome game. I'm not going to, I just think Walman, especially considering, like, we cited his irrational confidence. Yeah.

Which is turning rational, by the way, based on his play this postseason. It's very rational. I thought it was very noticeable. In fact, it's necessary. Let's go through the rest of our segments here. What was the fact? Fastball moment of the game. Now, we got to...

Ooh. I think it was Edmonton, but Pee, Pee, one. We got to get more reviews on the show in general, but more five-star ones. I think Riley, after the last one, listened to us and said, these guys, fastballs are really fastball. And so, you know, we can work on the creativity a little bit, but I appreciate the sentiment, Riley. But as we work our way towards catchy fastball merchandise this off season, we certainly need more of that. What was... My fastball moment of the game was the pregame, the player intros.

I thought we're incredible. The Evan Rodriguez just like smiling and loving it. Brovsky looking very sad, but Barkov showing absolutely no emotion at all as you'd expect. Nico Mikhaila looking like The Undertaker. I mean, it was pretty good. It was wonderful. I thought the crowd really delivered on that. They let them have it and the Panthers were full marks for their responses to it accordingly.

You know what? I think there's one of two things that it was. It was either Oilers Power Play 1 finally figuring out how to use Florida's pressure against them, or it was the oilers almost, like they almost worked the puck weak side and then worked it back on this exit attempt. It almost looked like a, like a rugby team. And by the time they hit Bouchard with like a contested pass, right? It was not a clean pass that fed Bouchard for his sortie, you know, well up ice.

It was, you know, like a sort of a flubbed, just like desperation move to get. it over, but it almost looked like a rugby overlap. And Bouchard was able to just take off. And it's just like, it's scary, it's hard. You are courting disaster, but if you can just make that extra play on your way out of the zone. And that's, you know, when the Maple Leafs looked good against the Panthers, they were hitting that extra play consistently.

I just think it's the only way to reliably break this stress game. And I think that's the space that the Oilers need to live in if they're going to win this Stanley Cup. I mean, the reason why this series is so captivating in this game was so fun is because it's really two teams with very different fastballs, just exchanging them with no real off-speed stuff mixed in. It's just high heat in who can eventually get around to one. Yeah, power on power. I thought, you know, despite the quibbles on whether it was goal interference in the review, and obviously that had a big swing in the game, making it 1-0-0-0-0-0-2-1, Florida in the blink of an eye, I thought the moments. leading up to that one.

We were even commenting in real time. It kind of felt inevitable after the Panthers gave up the first goal. They were just kind of stringing together these shifts with that forecheck and keeping the puck in the zone. And so I felt kind of like a damn breaking moment for the Oilers at some of those rushes. But really the right answer is the overtime goal because that's the definition of the Oilers fastball, right? It's McDavid-Dreysaitle. It was unlocking the power play where they needed it most. It was stretching out, kind of baiting the Panthers peak hairs into chasing them high in the zone.

and then essentially executing a perfectly placed two-on-one within that chaos, and that's everything you could ask for. So that really is the fastball moment of the game. The pre-scout, let's look ahead to game two and some of the rest of the series. I think we've hit on a couple of the trends that we saw in this game, certainly, but what are you looking for in terms of kind of the terms of engagement and what we can expect from this next game in the series? I think the Florida Panthers are going to spend some time,

and Florida Panthers coaches are going to spend some time looking at the whiteboard over the next 48 hours and really trying to figure out how willing they are to have that Ekblad Forsling pair spend a lot of time against Streisidal. And they probably don't have a ton of other good options, but they really didn't lean on the Barkov-Forsling smother and blanket in this game. Now, they don't have a choice in the matter necessarily. I thought Noblock actually did some pretty interesting things with the Frederick line in terms of spotting them against. I mean, I think they'll need to be more careful about it.

But certainly they did free up Barkov from Forzling Ekblad. Although as the game went on and Forzling Ekblad struggled, I sort of wonder how much that became a gentleman's agreement. And Maurice would have been very much on side with Jones and Mikala. That might be the Panthers' Tufts pair right now, given how they've performed across the last eight games. But I think that's sort of the key, like what's the key solve that Paul Maurice and his staff need to figure out? That was just a matchup. Drysidl especially against Eckblad Forsling that was lopsided in the extreme in Edmonton's favor. And I feel like that's going to be sort of the dam that needs to be plugged up here from a Florida perspective going into game two.

Yeah, there were a couple instances where Foresling would be on the ice for a shift and then there'd be a line change and McAvigable to get out there and you could see Palm Maurice just like pushing back on the ice to try to get back out there right away and get the third pair off in particular. I mean, I thought the Panthers and listen, the fourth line has played really well. I don't believe they've still been on the ice

for a 5-1-5 goal again since they got put together in the Leaf series. No Shek had that nice little rush with a back-cat chance and overtime you'll take that whenever you get that from your fourth line. I thought there were some moments in particular where it was like, oh no, the fourth line and the third pair is out there and these are really exploitable minutes for the oilers to target. They got away with it. But that gets back to the central theme of the Panthers, particularly on the road here,

have to really micromanage all of these minutes, right? Just because of the nature of the two teams where you can string together these shifts where you're spending ozone time, recovering loose pucks, keeping him in the zone. But one little jailbreak or one either mistake handling a puck or a positional decision or just having the wrong guys out there. And all of a sudden, the Oilers are out on the rush, right? I think late in the second period, there was that. sequence where the panther spent seemingly four or five minutes in the oiler zone just kind of

playing with the puck and then the others are able to get it out it's a bit of a jail break it's a two-on-one it doesn't lead to a shot but i believe evan rodriguez has to take a high stick uh and dry siddle is the off guy and then that gives the oilers a power play and kind of swings the momentum of the game as well and so like you can that's the difficulty of this task for them right you can play four or five great shifts together but all it takes is one little slip up and this oilers team is so devastating and punishing you for it as the Golden Knights and the stars found out all too frequently. And so it's just going to be tightening that up. I think we've seen from this Panthers team they're capable of it.

But it's going to take really a perfect effort, I think, essentially on all those fronts to manage this and really kind of tighten the screws on the Oilers' offense. And I do think the Oilers ultimately while they sort of began to figure it out as the game went along, especially I'd say in the latter 15 minutes of the third period and then they had three-ish chances in overtime. But I do think for a large portion of this game, their breakouts were just not functioning the way they need to if they're going to keep the heat that the Panthers can bring off of them. I felt like especially for the first 35 minutes, even when the Oilers, like the Oilers are so dangerous that they still had chances. they were still dangerous in flashes or moments, but in terms of like that sustained rush dynamism

that this Oilers team brings when they're at their best, I felt like we really only began to see that in the last 15 minutes of the third and in overtime. So there's something there. They obviously made progress as the game went on, but more of that I think is going to be required. We need to see more of, we need to see more of Edmonton's preferred style of game

than we did in game one. I think if they're going to win, you know, four of the next, or three of the next six, because they can win the cup with a 500 record now. Yeah. But three of the next six and actually get the job done. Yeah, I thought, you know, despite our pleas for Jack Michaels to be involved in this because of how electric he's been, I thought Cuthbert and Simpson were awesome in this game. Simpson was on the matchup game, like some really good texture and notes.

I thought they were great. And I loved Cuthbert had just a bunch of elegant moments using the vibe of the arena. Yeah. Right? And the crowd will tell you that the penalty is expired, right? The Perry's back on the ice. Just I thought that was a fantastic game call from them today. And Simpson pointed this out,

but I think part of why they liked Jones and Mikala in those minutes, there were a number of times where Jones was essentially up the ice, mirroring McDavid and trying to cut him off at the head as opposed to allowing him to build up that speed. McDavid's been exerting so much effort going low in his own to retrieve pucks and then attack that way and prevent guys from really kind of sticking attached to him and Jones was just exerting so much effort kind of tracking him all along the ice and trying to stop that before it ever materialized. Ideally you'd want Foresling in those

minutes although as we've documented Foresling and Ekblad really struggled in this game. It almost feels like like I love Gus Foresling but it feels like when he's tasked with facing someone he deems as a truly dangerous threat and it's usually the Kutraub or Pasternak as we've seen where McDavid are Dreisaitle he like locks in and just handles that and then whatever and maybe that's why it's Cryptonite was Casperi Caput and this game and Prox it on that rush it's like it's kind of unassuming

and so they just Bouchard crossed him over to him all dog just put their head down and just attack and they were able to take it to the net against him so I'm not I'm not ready to say that this is what's happened or what have you but well it's what happened in game one for sure but I like

are there signs because this is something that's going to be a storyline as this series goes along especially you know if a if um if, for example, a critical pillar of the Panthers team level success is not standing up to the pressure the way we expected to and the way it has across two distinct finals appearances in the last three years. Three finals appearance in the last three years, excuse me. But, you know, much like with that Tampa Bay Colorado series we saw a few years ago, like as that series went along,

game one was also an avalanche overtime win. but as that series went along, it began to feel like, oh, maybe these playoff miles are catching up to this. Game two is an absolute butt kicking, if I recall, correctly. Yeah, and so, you know, you wonder if that becomes a plot here, especially if that Forsling, like, especially if Foresling's getting beat out wide by the sorts of the caliber of players, we don't usually see that happen against,

and especially if, you know, I mean, how critical has Forsling Eckblad's minutes been to the success of the Panthers? they have another game like this. I feel like we're going to start to have a more serious conversation where it's like, did they have it right now? All right, buddy. Well, that was a fun one. We're going to try to get this thing out there for people to listen in a short order

while this game's still fresh in the mind. You got anything to quickly plug here on the way out? Just these. These are going to be a highlight for me to do. A blast to watch the games with you, my friend, and looking forward to tracking this series and this level of minutia this closely across the next couple weeks. All right, buddy.

Well, that game fun, game one was incredibly fun. This show was fun with you. I can't wait to keep doing these. We're going to be back on Friday evening for a game two post game as well. Join us in the PDOCAST Discord. Join Riley with the five-star reviews about our fastballs here. And that is all for today. See you guys Friday night.

Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.