The Edmonton Oilers tied up the Stanley Cup Finals at two games a piece with a stunning comeback overtime victory over the Florida Panthers, 5-4, in Sunrise Thursday. And the Panthers did it in front of a celebrity audience with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce highlighting the crowd.
Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl scored the winning goal in overtime to cap off a back-and-forth thriller. It was Draisait, as the record shows, and he is not only breaking the NHL record for most overtime goals in a single postseason, which is a major achievement in hockey history. Draisaitl also scored the winning goal in overtime in Game 1.
The Oilers overcame an early three-goal deficit in the most dramatic game of the series so far. The Panthers took a commanding 3-0 lead in the first period on two goals by Matthew Tkachuk and one by Anton Lundell. However, the Oilers took less than a period to tie it up, with three goals by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Vasily Podkolzin and Darnell Nurse in the second.
The game froze up, with the teams playing at a stalemate going into the third period. That stalemate lasted more than halfway into the third period until Oilers defenseman Jake Walman finally broke the tie with a goal with just under 7 minutes to go in regulation.
And then, with less than 20 seconds to go, the Panthers tied it back up on a dramatic goal by Sam Reinhart, sending the game to overtime.
Neither team budged for the first 11 minutes of the extra period, but then Draisaitl broke through to ice the game and even up the series at the 8:42 mark. The series returns to Edmonton with Game 5 on Saturday.