Panthers once again can’t wrap up Stanley Cup Final vs Oilers. Now, there will be a Game 7

How did this happen?

Just a week ago, the Florida Panthers had a 3-0 series lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final. They were one win away from hoisting the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history.

They’ve had three chances to lock things up. They’ve failed all three times.

Game 4: An 8-1 blowout on the road.

Game 5: A more respectable but still deflating 5-3 loss on home ice.

And then Game 6 on Friday: A 5-1 defeat at Edmonton’s Rogers Place.

Now, somehow, surprisingly, this all comes down to a winner-take-all Game 7 on Monday at Sunrise’s Amerant Bank Arena.

“It’s tough,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “Obviously a tough one to take.”

The mood was tense in the Panthers’ dressing room after the game — understandable considering how the team is on the verge of an all-time collapse in Stanley Cup Final history.

Only twice in NHL history has a team rallied from a 3-0 series deficit to force a winner-take-all Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final: the 1945 Detroit Reds Wings and 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs are the only one of those teams to complete the comeback and win the Cup.

“We put ourselves in this situation,” forward Eetu Luostarinen said.

Added Panthers coach Paul Maurice postgame: “Well, right now if you walked into the room, there won’t be a lot of happy people. I’m not worried about [the players’ mental state] tonight. It doesn’t have to be right tonight. You’ve suffered a defeat, you feel it, it hurts. You lick your wounds, and we start building that back tomorrow. But who you are tonight means nothing to who you’re going to be two days from now.”

The Panthers know they have to be much better than they were on Friday.

Florida was once again a shell of its normal self early, putting up just two shots on goal (both from distance by defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson) in the first period. That gave Edmonton the chance to take a 1-0 lead on a Warren Foegele snap shot from up close on a feed from Leon Draisaitl.

Through the past three games, the Panthers have been outscored 5-1 in the first period.

“We just have to match it and then go from there,” defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. “We get better as the game goes on.”

Added Verhaeghe: “They came out hungrier than us. They wanted it and that was kind of it. We didn’t really get to our forecheck off the start, and they took it to us. So, I think it’s for us to get better, and I think we need some better starts.”

It was 2-0 Edmonton 46 seconds into the second period when Adam Henrique and Mattias Janmark capitalized on a two-on-one rush, with Henrique burying a wrist shot.

Florida appeared to get back within one on an Aleksander Barkov goal 10 seconds later, but the goal was overturned after Edmonton successfully challenged that the play was offside.

“You’re looking for a jumpstart,” Maurice said. “The shots are 11-2 in the first period so we need something to go. I think they ended up 11-4 [shots in favor of Florida] in the second period and they scored on two of them. It would have been a spark for us for sure.“

The Oilers then went up 3-0 with 1:40 left in the second period when Zach Hyman scooped up a blocked Gustav Forsling shot, went the length of the ice uncontested and beat Sergei Bobrovsky with a backhanded shot.

Barkov put the Panthers on the board early in the third period but Florida failed to get anything else going after that. Edmonton sealed the win with a pair of empty net goals from Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse.

And now, we have Game 7.

“We’ve had three match points,” Barkov said, “but [now it’s] Game 7. That’s everyone’s dream. We need to be ready.”