RATTLED INTO WASTED SHAME, THE OILERS LOOK UGLY AGAINST THE PANTHERS
Edmonton was agitated into a penalty mob — 21 penalties for 85 minutes — which is no way to help Connor McDavid win a Stanley Cup, while Florida laughed its way to a 2-1 lead in the Stanley Cup Final
We saw the entire tongue of Jonah Gadjovich, even the red stuff, as he mocked the Edmonton Oilers. He was laughing, chirping and calling them lewd names, which turned the Stanley Cup Final into a bastardized UFC showcase. At one point, teammate A.J. Greer stole the glove of Jake Walman, who grabbed a bottle and squirted water toward the Florida Panthers’ bench.
He missed the players, only nailing a sideline broadcaster.
“Yeah, I mean, I obviously did that for a reason,” Walman said. “I won't go into the details. It's just gamesmanship, I guess. I’ve got to realize there's cameras everywhere, and they see that stuff. … We've got to be more disciplined than that. We know better than that. It kind of takes the flow out of it, you know?”
There was no flow for the Oilers on Monday night. The Florida Panthers kept taunting them, from Matthew Tkachuk to Brad Marchand, who is known as “a rat” and allows teammates to shoot plastic rats at him. This is part of a franchise history in which rats have been killed — making South Florida what is is — and years later, the Panthers are two victories away from back-to-back championships. They literally rattled the enemy, torturing Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, as the Oilers were whistled for 21 penalties and 85 minutes in a 6-1 loss.
Did they not realize they represent a country, Canada, that has not won an NHL title since 1993? Didn’t they know Wayne Gretzky, who once won four titles in their uniform, was in the broadcast booth and trying to make excuses for them? The Panthers played like children and embarrassed the Oilers, who are trying to win a Cup for McDavid but instead were ridiculed by Tkachuk.
“You’ve got to take a punch in the face, a slash in the face, a slash on the leg. You’ve got to be smart,” he said. “We were smart.”
From the magnificent goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, to pests such as Tkachuk and scoring demon Sam Bennett, the Panthers are a better team than Edmonton. Nothing has changed in a year. McDavid vowed to overcome a Game 7 loss to the Panthers last June, but at present, the addition of Marchand only pummels the Oilers. He is thrilled to play near the Everglades, after a March trade from the Boston Bruins. The rats are part of his life, happening after every victory.
“Yeah, it was one of the things that my kids said right away," Marchand said. “They were asking about the rats being thrown out there, and I was like, ‘I don’t know when it happens, but if it does, I’ll grab a couple. So I did.’ ’’
He scored only 56 seconds into Game 3 after ending Game 2 with a double-overtime goal. At one point, Bennett was cross-checked by Trent Frederic, who dragged Bennett down by his jersey and had to deal with retaliatory punches. McDavid was not pleased with a loser’s look after winning Game 1. Who wasn’t fighting Gadjovich?
“I thought we got away from our game,” McDavid said. “Part of that is due to chasing it a little bit. Part of that is obviously a credit to them. They played well. You find yourself in a hole, you're going to do some uncharacteristic things and I thought we got away from our game a little bit there. Obviously, it wasn't our best.”
“It's for the Stanley Cup, you know? There's not an inch out there,” Walman said. “That’s a grown man's game out there. It's not for the faint of heart. Guys are putting everything on the line, you know?”
To have any chance, McDavid and Draisaitl must score. They failed Monday night, and the Oilers are 2-11 when they go blank in the playoffs. “Definitely, the third period is an unraveling,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I think the game was out of hand. I don’t think we would have acted or played like that had the game been a one-goal or a two-goal game. I think our guys were just trying to, I don’t know, boys being boys — just trying to make investments for the next game.”
Only the Panthers are boys being boys. “We're a very deep team," Marchand said. “That's one of our strengths is the depth of the group from the front end to the back end to the goaltending. Emotions in all these games are extremely high. This is the time of year you want to be playing, and you're enjoying every minute.”
The Oilers have two days off and won’t be heading to the beach. “We ended up playing what Florida kind of wanted. It was just penalty chaos tonight,” said goaltender Stuart Skinner, who was removed and might have to be replaced. Chances are, they will be heading back to Canada with a 3-1 deficit.
“Game 4 is a really big game,” McDavid said. “It's a big swing game.”
He must win. Or how would the game’s best player like to lose two Cups in a row?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.