The Hockey PDOcast - Post Game Reactions and Takeaways Following Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to unpack everything they saw in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, highlighting how the Panthers won in double overtime to tie the series at 1, and look ahead to the key storylines for Game 3. 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 PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovic. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name's Dimitri Filippovich and joining me here in studio for our game two postgame show, my good buddy Thomas Trans Tom, what's going on, man? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's like last episode, I feel like because it ended in the first overtime frame. Oh, it was like 30 seconds left. It was really four periods. I know, but it's saving us from the intermission and then the way that like once you get into that second overtime it's like very few connected passes it becomes ridiculous how much everyone's getting away with on the ice right like the battles on the wall it's just like cross check hold cross check i don't know i don't think anyone by

the end of the game in the second overtime even had the energy to commit infractions really no i know they were all accidental of guys just bumping into each other because they were falling on the ice stopping each other from doing so but all of the post whistle juice came out like there was so much post whistle shenanigans and then you get into the second overtime in like these two absolutely quarrelsome teams right that that are habitual line stepers right like i'd love to criticize the officiating from the first period except i think it's these teams making the environment just about impossible to manage and and all of that fire and heat is gone it becomes just a pure game of survival brad marshand taking advantage off a stanch and bounce to win it uh

on the breakaway. I think the number one, like the headline takeaway from this has to be, it would feel wrong for either of these teams to emerge from the first two games of this series with a lead. There's been no gap between these two teams. Nothing separating them. To illustrate that,

I'm tracking the scoring chances live here. By the end of the game, 28 scoring chances for the Oilers, 28 scoring chances for the Panthers. And there were eves and flows, right? the second period was quite lopsided once again in Florida's favor, but then the Oilers made their third period push in that sense. It was a very mirror image game of game one.

And so I completely agree with you. I was going to say, I had to jot it down here. I was like, can these teams just keep playing in perpetuity until October? Because I've been enjoying how tight and competitive it is and seeing the best versions of both come out at various spots. And then after that game, too, I'm like, you know what? I'm glad we have an extra day off between these games. I think everyone needs it.

You and I, the viewers, the players, certainly. And, you know, there's only one game in this series between now it being Friday night and Thursday evening. And so I think that's going to do everyone well. But you're right. By the time we got to the second period, just routine breakout passes that were like close quarters tape to tape were being sent long and not being able to be retrieved. And it was just kind of a punting it back and forth.

Ultimately, Brad Marchand breaks through in that sense. I do think it was a very justified. close to the game because Marchand was awesome in this one. He scored the one short-handed goal. He had the two chances in the first overtime, including a great second effort fighting off Wallman where he slides it under Skinner's pad.

It hits the post. In watching the replay, I actually thought Klingberg did a great job of trying to play it on his forehand and not inadvertently tapping it into the net and he's able to clear it off the goal line. But yeah, it was a remarkable game. I mean, I had all these notes throughout in real time,

and then I'm glad I have them, because the second period feels like it was a couple days ago. On Wednesday, yeah. The, I think the, you know, like the first period shenanigans, the Sam Bennett part of this, right? The fall on Stuart Skinner, just all the nonsense. There was so much post-wistle chicanery. And by the end of the game, as we said,

neither team really had energy to engage in it. And they were just kind of skating back to the benches. But really, through regulation on the first period, every whistle resulted in some sort of scrum that took a couple minutes for the puck to be dropped again there was once again so many shenanigans in the face-off circle as well players trying to sneak off the ice after icings led to a review

in the first overtime to make sure the five correct oilers were still in the ice and by that point darn on hers had a 45 second sit on the bench and then a vendor cane just like wobbles over to earn the additional delay of game and it's just like guys what are we doing here the only call of the game that I actually really didn't like was the Bouchard

cross check on Lusteranan at the end of the second where or sorry that was the Nosek cross check late where After Nosek dropped him they had a chance out front and the retaliatory one drew the call

like the Panthers had taken a string of penalties so you know there's a game management out but the game element management is you let them get away with a hold that created a scoring chance like that's the game You can't let them get away with that, have the Oilers stop a scoring chance, and then call a softie in the name of game management. That's too much for me, even within the context of how these games are usually called.

I think that was the only call that I really didn't like. You know, the Bennett interference against Skinner, like, we all know what he's doing. And, you know, he falls in a direction that he is not pushed in by Ackholm. And, you know, credit to the man, right? He knows exactly how to play this game. It's incredible to watch. He is an artist. He's an evil genius.

He's an evil genius, yeah. No question about it. Sam Bennett has the upper hand. But, you know, I do think it's fair to note that the standard flopped between game one and two, right? There's no difference, really, for me, between that play and the one where he tripped over Kulak, you know, intentionally putting himself into Skinner. And in fact, you know, the intention of it, he. falls at the exact moment that a shot comes in. It's like, man, Sam Bennett really becomes the guy who can't do a pull-up at the combine,

only when these point shots are coming at the opposition's goaltender. It's incredible. You have to protect. Yeah. I guess the other one that I thought was a little cheesy was the, another Bouchard cross-check. That was the one against Lusterin. Where in the second period, it's like the Panthers could tell they'd had too many penalties against them, and they started kind of diving.

And I didn't like seeing that get rewarded. But whatever, we can move on from the officiating. I thought for the most part. Yeah, there's so much fun stuff to break down here. I feel like we shouldn't waste valuable time. Excuse me. Excuse me. I actually meant to say that I thought the officiating,

especially in the first period, wasn't as bad as it felt in real time, in part because I think that's on the players, putting, you know, Gibbons and company in a really tough spot with the way that they manipulate and attempt to manipulate the environment of the game. All right, we're here in studio. I'm just going to recap for everyone.

We're recording where after game two. We have another chance to obviously go back and rewatch it or really break down the numbers. We're going to do our best here to cobble our brains together enough to record tonight's post-game show. We want to start with the PDOCs 3 stars. I thought that was a really nice element in game one.

And you can keep the actual NHL-awarded stars from me once again, and we can play a little game to see how close I am. Do you want to do that? I got it. I got it up, ready to go. All right. Third star, I'm going to give it to Connor McAvon. He winds up with the three assists.

I thought, you know, it wasn't the flashiest one because it kind of led a point shot to the bounce to the Perry tying goal with 18 seconds left, but go back and rewatch it. He wins two battles to lose pucks, right? Right off the draw, he's able to cut off Lustrina, I believe. Then he wins it again along the wall. It winds up working its way to Walman.

I thought that was a great play, because I think you and I have spoken about this in the past, right? Whenever there's a goal like this, it's sort of human nature and a lot of fans to watch the games want to assign blame to someone. and I thought on that play it was just textbook awesome offense

versus defense and offense winning out and it just being a great battle right we're going to talk more about Luster in here in a second but after being out there for that extended empty net situation he's all over it he's contesting he's killing

valuable time he's battling along the wall then he works his way back to the middle of the ice he actually ties up Corey Perry on it and Perry's able to power through and kind of niftily scoop it under him for the tying goal that sent us to the first and then ultimately the second overtime. And so I thought McDavid was once again phenomenal. He plays 35 minutes in this game. It's remarkable how much ice time he can eat up.

Although I thought it was notable as the overtimes progressed, it felt like Chris Knoblock was kind of rolling his lines and just trying to get everyone involved. I think acknowledging what a workload it was for him. But I thought him and Dreisaitel were phenomenal again, right? Dreis-Sidal had so many sequences where he's just a dog protecting the puck. They were attacking constantly. When they were making that push in the third period, 3-2, they had a number of chances. They were just foiled by a great Panthers defensive play. And I really thought the Panthers' defensive effort, I know they conceded the tying goal late in regulation

and wound up having to win it in the second overtime. But there were no scoring chances in that frame through the first eight or nine minutes of it. They had such good sticks kind of breaking up some of these promising plays before they could really materialize into anything. And so I thought it was just an awesome. offense versus defense battle, and McDavid often wins those, and he was pushing even in the second overtime. He had that drive to the net against Foresling. And I think obviously if the Oilers win this or if he's able to manufacture a game-winning goal, he's certainly higher and he's probably the

first star on this, but in a losing effort, I still thought him and Petrae said it were full marks in this one. Yeah, and I think the point you're making about the Oilers, or sorry, the Panthers defensive game, what did you have scoring chances? Do you have scoring chances in just the third period? Ready to go? Yeah, A-2 for the Oilers. A-2 for the Oilers. And a lot of those were backloaded as well in the final, like, eight to ten minutes. Right. The, like, I just felt like the Panthers defensive effort in the fourth, you had Gustav Forzling with the Bounceback, like the mother of all bounce back games, just breaking up, scoring opportunity

after scoring opportunity. There was the, you know, the clever stick that negated the, which was that the Connor Brown chance, the dry-sidal rush chance, sort of was another big one. Yeah, the last second recovery, and he knocks it away before we get a shot off. believable play. He had the one, and it was it, I've over time, sort of blending together, but Evander Cain just dances around Aaron Eckbott.

I think it was the first overtime. That's right. And he's going to go in alone against Bobrovsky and his horse laying down and it gets it with a second effort with a stick. He had at least six or seven plays like that way. He just robbed an imminent scoring chance all through his defensive brilliance. Straight up erased scoring chances all over the ice all night long. And then I thought Luce Drainan had an incredible defensive game.

And I think really punctuated in part by the, coincidentally by the oilers game time goal, where the puck's in the corner and he's battling in the corner, but he recovers quickly and ends up in the slot. He's draped all over Perry. Perry only really has one hand with which to sort of score a chip shot goal on Bobrovsky to tie the score. Like, what are you going to do if you're the Oilers?

Like, you did everything you possibly could. The original shot is not a high quality chance to flex off another Oilers player. the scoring chance itself isn't that great. The player who's taking it is checked to the point where they only have one free hand. Isn't that reflective, though, of this game and why it's so elite, even the Marchand second overtime winner, Drysidal makes a great effort to get back and bother him and prevent it from being a clear cut breakaway, and he's still able to power through and ultimately get it by Skinner.

And so both instances, you kind of just have to chalk it up to the offense for just out battling and out executing against that defensive pressure. Every half inch is being fought for tooth and nail. and it shows every goal feels like magic, you know, except for the Kulikov one that bounced in on Bouchard. Every goal feels like a magic sequence where you're just watching elite hockey players triumph over elite defensive hockey players. I just think there's going to be this conversation or this idea that the Florida Panthers

like sat back in the third period. And I just didn't see it that way. Like shots were six five for the Oilers at five on five. A lot of those scoring chances, as you said, were back-waded when the Oilers were going for broke or with their goalie pulled. You know, for the most part, like I don't know how much better you're able to defend in the year 2025 with the way the game is called,

not that penalties get called in the third period or overtime. It would have taken a puck over glass. It would have taken a lot. But nonetheless, you know, I think they had pretty close to a perfect defensive third period and for it to not matter, I think is a testament really more than anything to, like, Edmonton to the quality of this team

and to the fact that, you know, even with the Panthers, you know, throwing their defensive fastball, this Oilers team feels pretty inevitable in terms of what they're able to create, even with suffocating defensive pressure on them. Just like tip of the cap, you wanted an all-offense versus all-off, like the best offensive team versus the best defense. Like, you've got that in the third period. Yep.

My second star, and you're kind of stepping on the toes of this exercise by just rattling off everyone's individual brilliance in this one, but it's Gus Foresling. Yeah. And I consider long and hard to, have him as the first start because I thought that was really the story here, especially after what we documented in game one, right, where him and Ekblad really struggled. They weren't even getting necessarily the heavy assignment against McDavid and Bouchard in that head-to-head matchup,

and they got badly outshot, and it wasn't a typical game you'd expect from them. Gus Forzing in this one leads the Panthers in 5-15 ice time. He plays 25 minutes and 13 seconds. High-danger chances in that time were 5-3 for Florida, 53% of the expected goals. 11 and 49 against Dry Cytle won that matchup, 1033 against McDavid, played it to a draw. And he had a number of those individual efforts, right? Whether it was the recovery against Recytel, the one against Cain. He had one in second overtime where TriCitl's trying to take him out wide and he knocks it away. I would even argue the McDavid rush where with one hand he nearly still tucked it by Bobrovsky

and it was a very threatening look certainly. But forcing him play that about as well as you can, right? He forces him to the outside. He keeps him there. He doesn't let him cut back in. and I just thought the way he stepped up in this one, it's not surprising considering the quality and caliber of defensemen he is and what he did during last year's Stanley Cup run.

But based on what we saw from him in game one, I thought really him leveling up here and winning those matchups and really erasing a lot of those opportunities, as you put it, was the main driving factor for this Panthers win. Yeah, I mean, I thought the Forsling-Eckblad pair needed to, well, and I don't think Ekblad had his best or even close. His retrievals in this game, we joke on the Discord, we call him the glacier, because he really does move at a glacial pace, and there is an Ekblad glacier somewhere out there that's actually titled that. And he was so slow.

There was that comical sequence, what feels like days ago now in the first period where they're on the power play, Seth Jones gets a point shot off. Skinner kicks it out to her wall and he's trying to track it down and he's just like skating in mud and the puck exits the zone and then he turns it over in the neutral zone and you're just like, man, I, if I'm Paul Maurice and I'm rewatching this and acknowledging that the power play opportunities, even though they were obviously very rich for both sides in the early stages of this game, it might not be so as this series progresses into the later stages. But I really feel like you got to, you got to consider putting Nate Schmidt up higher on the power play unit, right?

He's not one of my stars. He's an honorable mention here, but he was moving the puck brilliant again. He helped set up the two goals, the play he makes in particular, forcing a cap and turn over on the wall, working it up high in the zone on the backhand, getting it around Kane that sets up the Seth Jones goal,

I believe. He's had, what, four or five, at least brilliant dimes in these two games, and I've just been blown away by the decisions he's been making in in particular, right? He had that one backdoor look off the wall that got knocked away by an Oilers defender, but otherwise would have been an easy tap-in for Barkov,

and so he's been brilliant, and I feel like him and Kulikov winning their minutes the way they did in this one, obviously not going to be tasked with the same types of assignments that Foresling or even Seth Jones pair is, but that's a huge difference here in a game like this. For what it's worth, I don't think Paul Maurice necessarily agrees with you all that strongly. Through regulation, through regulation, the one sort of mild adjustment that the Panthers made was they compressed the gap between their second and third pair. And that might not have even been something that they drew up on the whiteboard between games. That might have just been a reaction to the fact that Nate Schmidt was clearly going tonight. And Aaron Eckblad struggled, especially the first three minutes of this game.

Like, he had a really slow start to this one tonight, too. But, you know, Gustav Forsling was the high minutes man among the D through regulation. So not factoring in the survival mode. Yeah, not factoring in the survival mode of the two overtime periods. Forsling was the high-minute man at 13-19, or sorry, 14-19, and Eckblad was the low-minute man, despite being his partner, at 1227. Like, that's a very tight split between first, second, third, fourth pair. And, you know, so I think you, I think this team sort of decided that,

hey, maybe if we lighten the load and trust our third pair a little bit more. And it obviously helps when Nate Schmidt's cooking. Like, Nate Schmidt had the game tonight that Jake Wallman had in game one. Yeah. You know what I mean? Where it was just a massive difference made. A lot of heat checks that all resulted in like either quality chances or you're like, yeah, that's the right thought process. 100%.

Yeah. I wonder, you know, Ekblad takes that point shot off the hand, like directly off of it. He was clearly in a lot of pain. He was able to come back out. And so we'll see it might be one of those where he's really feeling the after effects of it later. But I do wonder if that's going to limit whatever ability he already has at this point to handle pucks and to shoot in particular. I do wonder whether they'll make that adjustment on BP1, right? Because I feel like having him and Seth Jones out there,

I know they've been productive, especially in the hurricane series. But for the opportunities you do get, I feel like you need to take better advantage of those. And so Schmidt's clearly just moving the puck the best out of any of those guys right now. Yeah, no question. And it matters right now against this oilers, especially the way the Oilers are quickly countering if the Panthers mismanaged the puck in the neutral zone.

And especially the way that the Oilers are punishing Ekblad and Kulikov to a lesser extent. retrievals. I mean, they're getting to everybody. They're getting to Jones and Mekola, too, on those dumpins. Not quite to the level that the Panthers are on everybody, but, you know, I think you are seeing the Oilers get some, like, quick offensive looks or at least zone time off of, you know, moments where the Panthers D is not quick enough to get the puck and turn and get it up ice. I mean, the numbers bear that out. In Jones and Mekola's minutes of 5-15, the Oilers generated like two and a half expected goals worth of offense.

Right. And Gus Forzing, by comparison, who led the team, as I said, in 515 usage, 0.73 expected goals against, and the Schmidt pair was even less in their abbreviated usage. Want to do the first star? It's got to be Brad Marchand. Right? No question. The short-handed goal.

He had a couple other plays. He's so hard to hit, like, so slippery, kind of either spinning around checks. And I thought, you know, even in the lead-up to the series, I thought his movement was right up there with how he looked in his prime. His hands just weren't really keeping up. He scores the two goals in tight and alone in this game. He had those brilliant chances in the first overtime as well. I think he winds up with seven shots on goal in this game.

And I mean, he made the difference. And I think finishing in tight, right? Because you and I kept noting throughout with the top line, which hasn't really gotten going offensively in the series yet for the Panthers. And maybe that should lead to encouragement that you know eventually Barcoff is going to do something brilliant offensively. Reinhard and Verhege, and they made that switch bumping up for Hagey to that line, and someone in the Discord joked, what did Barkov do to deserve playing with two Carter-Vr-Haggis?

I thought Verhagi was awesome in terms of his battle, right? The broadcast showed a couple times where he hunted down McDavid, made life difficult for him, knock pucks away in the neutral zone. He sets up that Marchand play, winning a puck behind the goal line against Klingberg, I believe. So he was making good plays, but just the finishing from those two guys. Reinhardt gets the breakaway in the overtime, misses the net. He had a couple other from just prime scoring regions on the ice and lamenting the fact that not even really, like, I thought both goalies were excellent in his game despite the fact that were nine goals scored. But they, in a lot of those instances, weren't even really testing Skinner because they were either cutting it too close or just being erratic and just missing the net on a lot of those opportunities, right?

And so they don't wind up registering as shots on goal, but they are scoring chances. And so on the one hand, it's good that they're getting the puck in those areas, but they just need to be way more efficient with those actual looks. Yeah, I mean, they, as a line, and this is all situations, so not only at five on five, but for Hagey Barkoff, Reinhardt, you know, missed 11 shots tonight, like the 11 shot attempts between them, about, you know, going at about a 50% clip in terms of their attempts versus the shots they're taking, which is fine if you're a defenseman, right? Like, it's fine if you're a defenseman in a double overtime game. You're probably not quite so overjoyed about it if it's quality finishers.

And you saw it right from the start. I mean, Reinhart was in a. great scoring opportunity on the very first Panthers shift and miss the net. There was the breakaway. Verhegey had another sequence too where he like cuts in front of the net and ends up not getting a shot off, much like he did in game one. You know, I know that we, this is the PDO cast, so let's talk regression really quickly. I know that people think about. Ryan Hart is going through all of its speed running it in really this postseason.

Well, also the way that it manifests itself from our perspective as viewers, right? where we think about it as like, good and goal lead, you know what I mean? But sometimes I do think, too, there's an element to which the things you try to do work and the things your opponents try to do don't, right? And the opposite of that, like, I think the extent to which, especially for Verhege and Reinhart, some of their scoring chances are in fact not becoming scoring opportunities at all, because they're missing the net, because they're, you know, just being a little bit wasteful in terms of some of their opportunities.

these are talented goal scorers and that's not going to continue. It's not getting goalied, but at the same time, I think we should note, like, these are good players getting the puck in premium scoring areas. And not converting. And even though it looks and feels a little bit different and because they're misses, that's not going to impact their PDO, as it were, we don't think of it as a, like, a regressive force or something where they're due, but these guys are very much due, even if there's an element to which they need to make better shots if they're going to have this

regression kick in. I expect it will, and you're going to see the Panthers, you know, make more of those opportunities. I've been waiting for it all postseason, and we keep waiting. But if you figure eventually if they keep getting those looks, I thought the goalies were excellent in this one. As I said, LeBrovsky in particular, I know you and I are often quite critical of him. He was great. I thought he was excellent, stared down a number of really high quality chances that made a move in particular preceding it. Yeah, that sick.

In the third period, I mean, he made a bunch of them. Yeah, that sick blocker save on the post-crease, the capon, stop. I mean, he was immense tonight. What were the three official NHL stars? Can you pull that up? Yeah, no, I have it. It's Brad Marshall, Shand won. So you got two of three. Nice. Every Bouchard was two. And then Connor McDavid was three. So Bouchard was an honorable mention for me. He winds up with the three points,

14 shot attempts. Leading to the goal he scores, right? The shot he makes is just brilliant there. And it's a McDavid entry, but the broadcast highlighted this. It's four on four right off the defensive zone. He makes a backhand pass with Barkov contesting him to McDavid to spring that rush opportunity. And then that controlled entry leads to that eventual Shaw where he just drags it before the shot and picks his spot and beats Bobrovsky cleanly for full marks there. He made the play as well for the Kane rush goal, the first one I believe, where he kind of stops a chip in the neutral zone, gets it to McDavid in stride. Schmidt knocks it away, comes back to him. He chips it back off the wall and that springs Kane for that one.

I loved also. I didn't tweet the screen grab of it, but I was showing you it. the still of Nate Schmidt diving for that one. And it's not even a knock on him because it's just an all-out effort. And that's exactly what you want to see. He was out of position. He wasn't going to be able to do anything. But there isn't even a cross-ice element.

So it's not like he's taking away a pass. He just full on head for his dives. And he's so far behind Kane that it's really not altering the shot at all. But you want to see that effort, especially this time of season. So I had Bouchard. As an Auburn mentioned, obviously it hurts him that he was a bit unfortunate, I think, defensively in this one, right? The Kulikov shot bounces in off of him, another one.

of those panther shots that probably would have missed the net and he's unfortunately standing there in the crease. Marshaun got behind him on the short-handed goal, although I don't say that's necessarily his fault. It was just a nice play off a kind of loose puck battle by Lundell to Springham. And then the weird bounce leading to the Marchand second overtime winner where he's also out of position. But that puck just took such a weird bounce that I think it makes him look bad positionally. But ultimately there's not that much you can do on it.

That's a broken play. That's a weird bounce. That's a double overtime. That's not on, yeah, no, I don't think that was on. More than anything, though, that is on the shooter. You can't miss Farside. Like, that would be sort of the comment. You're shooting from that spot in the ice.

No one on your team has legs, even though Drysidled had a Herkulean effort to get back. You can't miss Farside on that chance. So that would be sort of the one note that you'd expect Oilers coaches or, like, the Oilers player himself, to, like, go back in the room and be like, my bad, I can't. I know I can't. miss it like that. The other honorable mention I had was Lucerne, as you mentioned, he plays 22-15, and only as the one-shot on goal, the pass he makes after receiving that play from Schmidt that I highlighted, where he sends it cross-ice beautifully for Seth Jones to essentially tap it in to an empty net.

He had a rush opportunity earlier where he just missed the net, and it was a glorious scoring chance for him. And then some of the defensive plays, I mean, there was that one when the Oilers were pushing in the third period. I believe Dreisaitle makes one of those vintage backhand seam passes. to Corey Perry, I believe, and Lusterian back tracks, lifts his stick, removes him from the puck. Obviously, Perry got him back late in regulation on the game-tang-go. But I think, you know, you're talking about Paul Maurice and whether his player usage and decision-making lines up with what I'm thinking

in my evaluation of these players. He had Lusirina out there at the end of the game trying to salt away the lead with Barcov and Reinhardt. And I think that's a pretty nice little look for Lusd-Rin there to be trusted in that role. Obviously, didn't wind up working out, but I don't think it was for a lack of defensive effort on his part. No, I think it was a good, I think that was a good adjustment and a good way to do it. If you're trying to kill the last minute or two of a game against the Oilers,

and look, this Oilers team is lethal. There is no space between these two teams, right? Like that's, what, nine, I mean nine periods essentially, or like eight and a half or whatever in these two games. Like, we're getting a pretty good sample already early in this series, and it's one-one. There's nothing really splitting them apart. No.

And as good as the Oilers, sorry, as good as the Panthers are defensively, right, the Oilers are finding ways to score. And as incredible as this Panthers forecheck is, the Oilers are finding ways to get loose off the rush. You know, it's just incredible. We've seen both of these teams play great hockey across two games. The goaltenders have brought it. We've had like two soft-ish goals the whole series.

I mean, this is as good as it gets. even if the games sort of grind down in overtime, like just the caliber of hockey we're seeing. I mean, I think this is through two games delivering as like the best hockey, the highest level competition we've seen in the NHL, and certainly the Stanley Cup playoffs in the cap era. And what more can you ask for? And it's remarkable because we were commenting on this while we're watching here in studio.

What was the score? It was 3-2 at that point for the Oilers. They had a 5-1-3, which they didn't convert on, although there was some sequences there. and then early in the second period Bouchard had two rush chances. They had a couple really good looks with speed downhill.

The one he put back into Debrowski, into Debrowski, you know, But it really felt like that could have blown the door open. 100% are ever going to give up or wilt away from the fight. But that could have been a multi-goal lead and all of a sudden the game looks different.

Instead, it's a one-goal game because the Bobrovsky saves and the oil is not executing there. And then that allows. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then Brad Marchand. I also did think that the Panthers finally put together, not finally, I mean, they did in the second period in game one, too, but they had one of those extended sequences,

and I think it lasted for more than half of regulation, where they really kept the Oilers on the back foot, and it just felt like the Oilers, A, I think the Oilers used, tried to use the wall too much, trying to escape the zone, and that obviously feeds what the Panthers do well. So I thought that was an issue something the Oilers have to get back to doing. They got to it in the sort of, what, last 25 minutes of the game of game one, maybe 30 minutes of game one, end of the third period and throughout overtime,

where they were using the center of the ice to escape their own zone. And when they were doing that, they were finding space behind the Panthers, much like the Maple Leafs did. I just felt like tonight there was way too many exit attempts where the Oilers were content to try and move the battle in the, the neutral zone and they weren't even doing it. I mean, the way that this panthers defense pinches, like you

put it up the wall and it's almost always coming back and they're going to continue to cycle and they're eventually going to get a Kulakov like bounce because that's what they do. The other part of this is I did think that there was a long stretch where the oilers just found it difficult to get back on the front foot.

Like they couldn't find, you know, in overtime they had that sequence where the Panthers pushed back and they had that like hit from Podkohl's enforced an icing and it gave them a moment to breathe and sort of restored some sense of normal hockey sanity, got them away from the Panthers sort of meat grinder that they're able to turn on whenever they'd like and or whenever they'd like, I mean, they work for it hard. Yeah. You know, the truth is that it felt like they really struggled to find that moment.

And even though they were able to tie the game six on five, it just felt like they didn't quite find their response tonight to sort of settle it down and get back. sort of get off their heels, as it were, as that game went along. Yeah, it's easier than done, though, because I agree with you, but I think a big part of that is what the Panthers do to you. And I think a lot of teams have fell victim to this where you wind up watching it and you're thinking, oh, man, I wish they were playing more aggressive or oh, I wish they were doing this or that, but ultimately in the line of fire under that type of constant pressure,

especially in the second periods. And we can talk more about that here as we close out. Let's take our break. We heard real quick, and then we're going to finish up this post game. You're listening to the Hockeypediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back in the Hockeypedadcast. doing our game two post-game with the Stanley Cup final, the Panthers tying the series up.

We did the PDOCAS 3 stars, Tom. We did the honorable mentions. What's your fastball moment of the game? Ooh, I think my fastball moment of the game's got to be Brad Marchand scoring a short-handed breakaway goal in the Stanley Cup finals on the exact same day that he did it against Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks 14 years ago. I mean, talk about maintaining your fastball to even get breakaways, 14 years after you, you know, his first big breakout performance in the Stanley Cup playoffs, his lone Stanley Cup victory.

You know, you know what? It also did make me think when you think about like the straight line. And it's basically a straight line if you go look at the history of the Selkie trophy from Bergeron to Barkoff as the sort of consensus top defensive center. There's, there's an element to which this Panthers team in their like master, mastery of the dark art of acceptable cheating. and the physical way that they play and how frustrating it is to oppose them for opposition fan bases and how widely load they are and their penchant for villainy and on and on.

But other than that. It really does... No, I love it. It really does feel like they're the spiritual successor of that Bergeron Marchand, Chara era of Boston Bruins hockey, right? Like, in some ways it's like maybe they stole that... They monsters them. Yeah, they monsters them with that comeback

victory in Game 7 back in the day. And ever since then, they've sort of had the mantle of the big bad. They play like it, they carry themselves like it, and guess what, they win like it? And so Marchand with the fastball moment of the game, and I think it was sort of captured that interesting vibe that they've sort of picked up and run with to their third consecutive Stanley Cup final. You know what? It feels like forever ago within the context of this game and this evening, my fastball, the moment of the game was the play Connor McDavid makes, and I didn't even somehow bring it up when I was describing his three assists, setting up the dry cycle. Power Play goal where it was very reminiscent of the movie put on Mira Haskinen to close out the stars last year in the West Final, right? Where he kind of...

And to do this, because you go back and rewatch it, and I posted a clip of it, the puck's bouncing the entire time. It's not even like it's glued to his stick necessarily, but there's never any doubt throughout that entire sequence that he's in complete control. And he's going up against a three-time Selke winner in Barakow, who you and I both think the world of,

especially defensively. And he just twists him around, which is an incredible feat. And then he obviously kind of drags it around Ekblad and sends a cross-ice for a tap in for Dreisdol. I tweeted the French goal call from the French broadcast of this game, the La Connexione between the two. La Connexion. I thought that's an incredible one, just an absolutely electric goal call. I think we need to start simulcasting and watching the French broadcast more because that was an unbelievable goal call of it.

But, I mean, that play was just absolute artistry and wizardry by McDavid and not surprising coming from him, certainly. but I thought that was the fastball moment just because the fact that he pulled off that series of moves in close succession like that against that quality of competition was absolutely outrageous. The hard match. I don't even know if we did this one last night.

We already kind of talked about, I think, Foresling turning his game around from game one and the difference he made in some of these one-on-one battles and knocking away pucks from Jocidal and McDavid in particular as we head to the series with games three and four in Florida, I imagine we're going to see a lot more of that. the Panthers are going to come out ahead in this series, and he's going to need to play that way. And so if there's anyone that can do it, it's him.

There's really no room for error because those guys are going to burn you if you miss the puck. But in this one, he was just getting to pretty much everything it felt like. Yeah. And, you know, I do think for all that we didn't love Aaron Eckblad's game, for example, tonight, you know, the Forsling line still played an awful, or the Foresling pair, excuse me, still played an awful lot against, you know, McDavid. against McDavid and Drysidal loaded up together. And for the most part, they, you know, didn't get slaughtered.

In fact, they were up one-nothing in those minutes at five-on-five. So they held their own and sort of effectively like plugged a dam that looked like it broke for the Panthers and really undermine their five-on-five game in game one. That was plugged. That sort of biggest issue got addressed in this one. And that felt like a huge deal from, a panther's perspective. I guess the other part of this is

it did seem like there was a few less, like there was a lot more dry-sidal with McDavid tonight than what the Oilers sort of were rolling through in game one. I think I'd like to see them get back to that, to be honest with you. I mean, there was three minutes for dry-sidle between Kane and Cappan,

but we saw sort of a little bit more, I guess like, sort of interchangeability in terms of their dry-sidal usage. And I felt like that gave the Oilers a good gear in game one. I'm not sure why they went away from it in this one. Maybe it was just that McDavid, Drysiddle, and Perry were cooking to such a significant extent. They had a lot of chances.

I mean, Perry obviously scores the game-tying goal, but there were a lot of moments where he had really good looks that, you know, either got blocked or, you know, a little bit wasted. So I'd like to see, I think, I liked the look that the Oilers had in game one where they were using Dry Sledo to attack in more different ways. And I wonder if they go back to it a little bit on the road when they'll have less say over matchups. A pre-scout for game three.

I feel like the key there. I mean, I thought the Oilers, it didn't necessarily wind up bearing itself out in the final results. And obviously the Panthers score a couple rush goals here. and Marchand's able to get out and transition all alone behind the D. But I thought there were stages where the Oilers looked much more threatening off the rush, especially early on in this one. There was that sequence, I forget in which period now,

but they're really gaining traction. And then Walman stretches those one out to Eckholm. He gets it over across to Arbetson on a three on two, and Barowski makes a big save, and that was the culmination of three or four of those in really close succession. And so that's going to be key, kind of getting out there. But I think that speaks to what you were saying about some of the breakout strategy, and getting stuck on the walls far too often in this one and trying to find a way to get it into the middle of the ice and attack there because that's clear.

Like this series is just going to be played on entirely different terms if they're routinely able to do that as opposed to when the game gets bogged down along the walls and the Panthers are able to lean on them the way they did here. Yeah. And that's, for me, that's it. That's, it sucks and you're right. It's so much easier to say it when you're watching it on TV as opposed to doing it on the ice. but I think their D need to take more chances, especially like trying to make the first four check or miss, because if you do that, the pressure game can break down,

and that's where you'll find space behind you. And it just every time the Oilers are trying to break it out along the wall, it's just not working. It hasn't worked for anybody. The Panthers are just far too good at making the easy thing or the safe thing, what feels like the safe thing, into by far the more dangerous thing. And they repeat the process,

they keep that pressure on and it kills you slowly. And I do feel like the Oilers fell for that trap, as it were, more notably tonight than they had in game one. And, you know, they still found their rush chances. They still found their rush game, as you quite rightly note. It's just that the margins in this series are so fine that in, you know, 15 minutes of withering Panthers pressure can kill you dead, given how little separates these two teams. I think the second period in particular, right? shots on goal, I believe, through the first two games in that frame alone are like 32 to 17 or something.

Right. For the Panthers, and that's really been the story from you. They're just an entirely different animal in that long change period, the way they kind of lean on you and have some of these just long, brutal, grueling sequences. Yeah. Keeping you stuck in the offensive zone. And that takes away your legs too, right? It's much more difficult when you've been out there.

And there was that one sequence later in this game, right? And you were initially critical watching it live because you're like, oh, nurse had cane there. Ekblad's the only guy back. We've already seen him dance around him previously. That's an area you attack, but then you see that it's been like an 80-second shift leading up to it. And so by that point, that kind of neutralizes you if the Panthers are able to execute leading up to that sequence. Which they are. And I think that's really what it is.

It's that the Panthers are trying to take a small mistake. Oh, I made the safe play instead of taking the chance to move it up the middle of the ice. And they're trying to turn the inch you give them into, you know, more than a country mile, a country marathon. And they do it so successfully. And it's just that it's so much harder to regroup. You can't just change your D by getting the puck into the neutral zone with the long change. And so the cost of every small mistake becomes greater in the second period. And they're just experts at stepping on your neck.

Like that's what they do better than anybody else. I think that's what we're seeing. And I don't know if the Oilers can manage it differently aside from like I really think it does come down to, being willing to take more chances, being willing to trust your. D to make more, like, honestly, like, risky moves and deeks trying to actually beat the first four checker creatively with a move. I honestly think he's the only way to sort of find a pressure release valve against this Panthers team.

And, you know, that way danger lies, but I also think it's your only salvation. You know what else I noticed? And it was really in that second period, especially, we talk a lot about how the abs better than anyone compress the offensive zone and really push the defense back. And the Panthers were getting all these looks. where they were just teeing off, and a lot of them were missing the net, unfortunately, for them. But where all of the would-be point shots,

whether it's from a defenseman or from Reinhardt, we're from, like, very high-dangerous areas where they're, like, from the circle, essentially. And that's because the Oilers-D was just in self-preservation mode, just kind of sagging back and getting stuck. And that's also going to make it much more difficult, because even if you block a shot or the puck rims around, if all five-year guys are essentially around the blue paint,

you're probably not winning that battle up the ice and having a winger leak out in transition and getting behind the D. and so it becomes increasingly difficult, I think, for them to get away with playing that way, not only defensively and leading the goals against, but just sapping their own offense. Yeah, and I think there was an element to which, like, they weren't really chasing Panthers, puck carriers at the half wall. Certainly their D were staying pretty compact. So I wonder if the Panthers were taking sort of what they were given,

as opposed to, like, looking for those opportunities in particular. I just think the Oilers were really focused on collapsing at the net, and given that sort of two backdoor tap-ins for goals in the first period, you can understand why that might have been a point of emphasis, one that increased as the game went along. All right, buddy, well, that was a hell of a game. I think we did a pretty good job trying to rack our brains together to make sense of everything.

We saw, we'll be back. No Sunday special this week, because game three is on Monday night with the extra day off. We'll be back that evening for a post-game show. It's been a hell of a day. I was in the studio like 14 hours ago now reacting to what seemed like the biggest news of the day. The style stars making a coaching change, beat the Burr being fired, and then sure enough, we get this absolute classic game two of the Stanley Cup finals. This series is already shaping up to be like an instant classic, a legendary series, and, man,

what a ton of fun this was. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Enjoy your free time with your loved ones or whatever you weirdos do when hockey isn't on. I'll be kind of robed in the streets. Looking to kill the time until Monday evening. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.