Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 26: Oilers knock out Golden Knights in overtime, Panthers hammer Leafs

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop exciting action in the NHL as we witness history in another team looking to win a championship. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop of everything that happened in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

Panthers dominate, push Leafs to brink of elimination

Though it wasn’t an elimination game, Game 5 between the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs had the makings of a must-win game, as one team was going to move within a win of the Eastern Conference Final.

Only one team seemed to show up on Wednesday night.

The Panthers were all over the Maple Leafs from the get-go, swarming the home side in the opening 20 minutes. The defending Stanley Cup champions outshot the Leafs 13-6 in the first period, with Aaron Ekblad scoring his second goal of the playoffs.

Even though Toronto only trailed by one heading into the first intermission, it seemed Ekblad’s tally took the life out of them. That was noticeable in period two, when the Leafs’ made mistake after mistake in their own zone, with a lot of credit going to the Panthers’ relentless forecheck. Goals by fellow defenseman Dmitry Kulikov and Niko Mikkola, along with the fresh Jesper Boqvist, helped give Florida a four-goal lead after 40 minutes, spurring the boo-birds from the crowd at Scotiabank Arena.

At that point, all that was left was the final buzzer. While there were plenty of pleasantries traded between the divisional rivals in the third, Toronto never had a sniff of a comeback, as Nick Robertson’s first goal of the postseason came in garbage time. A.J. Greer and Sam Bennett capped off a convincing effort as the Panthers skated away with a 6-1 win, taking a 3-2 lead in the series.

Florida has a chance to close things out on home ice on Friday night and advance to the Eastern Final for the third straight season.

Kapanen, Skinner’s heroics send Oilers to West Final

With how talented the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights are, the outcome of the fifth game of the Pacific Division Final saw two unlikely heroes send their team back to the Western Conference Final.

The game was a true stalemate through 60 minutes. Both team’s defenses didn’t want to make a mistake, and when either side slipped up, goaltenders Stuart Skinner and Adin Hill answered the bell. Both teams had chances to find the back of the net in regulation, but both netminders stood tall in clutch moments, especially Hill, who was doing everything he could to keep the Golden Knights from being eliminated.

Thanks to the masked men, the game went into overtime scoreless.

In the extra frame, the Oilers came out buzzing, seemingly desperate to end the series as fast as possible. Edmonton was credited with seven shots in the overtime, and it took a wild scramble to finally break through. Just over seven minutes into OT, after a couple of saves by Hill, Kasperi Kapanen, who hadn’t played in the postseason until Game 4 against Vegas, jammed home the game-winning goal, sending Edmonton to the next round.

It was Kapanen’s second playoff overtime goal of his career. His first came during his rookie season with the Leafs in 2017.

For Skinner, the man often criticized for his inconsistent play, it was another huge win. He shut out the Pacific Division champions for the second straight game, stopping all 24 shots he faced on Wednesday night. Skinner ended up making 67 saves on the 71 shots he faced in his three appearances against the Golden Knights.

With the win, the Oilers are heading to the Western Final in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1992. They will face the winner of the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars series. The Stars have a chance to eliminate the Jets on Thursday night.