The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2023-24 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.
In this edition, Bob Woods, former assistant coach with the Washington Capitals, Anaheim Ducks, Buffalo Sabres and Minnesota Wild, writes about two ways the Edmonton Oilers can claw back in the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers after losing Games 1 and 2 at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Edmonton Oilers were able to find seams with their speed and essentially use the Florida Panthers’ aggressive style against them in Game 1. They didn’t score in the 3-0 loss, but that was because of Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky being simply just outstanding.
That recipe, though, of taking what the Panthers do so well and turning it against them is part of what the Oilers need more of in Game 3 at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN+, ABC).
They’re down 2-0 in the best-of-7 series and they have scored one goal. It came in a 4-on-4 situation. But they know they can play with Florida and they know they can generate Grade-A scoring chances both from what they did repeatedly in Game 1 and how Mattias Ekholm scored their only goal of the series so far at 11:17 of the first period in Game 2.
They do it by finding seams through the middle of the ice, by taking advantage of the Panthers aggressive approach.
Florida wants its forwards to forecheck hard and its defensemen to pinch down the walls. When it works, the Panthers play like they did after Ekholm scored in Game 2, but when it doesn’t you can get a goal like Ekholm scored.
Aaron Ekblad came so far down the right-wing wall that he was almost in the corner with two teammates trying to defend Connor McDavid. But McDavid quickly recognized it and used his backhand to get the puck off his tape and up the ice to Ekholm. Edmonton had a 3-on-1 because of Florida’s aggressiveness and Ekholm scored.
The key for the Oilers is to get the puck past their first wave of forecheckers.
Flip it out. Chip it off the glass. Whatever they need to do to get it out of the defensive zone and into the neutral zone, do it.
And then they need to use their speed to skate onto it, to win the race to the puck. It can’t be just a flip-it-out-and-change situation. That won’t work. That feeds into what the Panthers want.
It has to be flip or chip it out and chase to maybe catch Florida being overaggressive. Get pucks behind them and then you’ve got your forwards going with speed. You can create outnumbered situations off that.
Those are going to be the things they’re looking for. The Oilers are an explosive team off the rush. That is their game. If they get enough opportunities the Panthers are going to have to back off eventually.
The Oilers weren’t able to do that enough in Game 2. The Panthers surely saw what happened in Game 1 and adjusted accordingly. They saw they were giving up too much, being too reliant on Bobrovsky, but speed is Edmonton’s game and that is what it has to get back to.