(Fort Lauderdale) This is the greatest offer a team can receive at the start of each season: reaching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and, as a bonus, playing it in front of its fans.
A party that will decide everything.
“Yes, 32 teams are on board with this idea,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.
This is the reality for Maurice and the Panthers. For one thing, the Panthers blew a 3-0 lead against the Edmonton Oilers in that final. On the other hand, there is always Game 7, Monday night at Sunrise.
And before his team took off for the five-and-a-half hour flight home from Alberta on Saturday, Maurice insisted his team would focus on the opportunity in front of them, not the opportunities that have were wasted with consecutive defeats of 8-1, 5-3 and 5-1.
PHOTO JASON FRANSON, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Panthers coach Paul Maurice
I don’t care about the past at all. Our plan is set. It begins [vendredi] evening after the match. We met [samedi] morning, we made a little video and we will do the same thing [dimanche] to prepare to play.
Paul Maurice, Panthers coach,
“I know it’s 3-3. The concerns of the previous three games certainly didn’t affect Edmonton and it won’t affect us. »
There are a lot of stats swirling around the media and on social media right now, and none of them are in favor of the Panthers. The Oilers became only the third team in Stanley Cup Final history to lose 3-0 and force a game seven.
The Oilers are also the sixth team to score at least five goals in three straight games in the final. The other five – the Pittsburgh Penguins (1991), Oilers (1984), New York Islanders (1981), Toronto Maple Leafs (1932) and Montreal Canadiens (1919) – have all won the Stanley Cup .
Being the first team since 1942 to blow a 3-0 lead in the final is the kind of thing that could haunt the team for a long, long time. A setback will inevitably raise questions about the future for many people within the organization.
The loss could also bring a sudden end to the momentum the Panthers have built over the past four years, after spending much of the previous two decades at the bottom of the standings.
A victory would solve all the problems.
” Accept [la situation] is the key to success, Maurice argued. I feel positive. Both teams can be excited. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final is every young man’s dream. No one ever dreamed of winning Game 4 in overtime. »
“It’s still game seven. »
Read “Oilers one win away from improbable comeback”