Panthers at Oilers, Game 4: Cup Glory on the Line Tonight

EDMONTON — Up 3-0 in the series and with the Stanley Cup in the building for Game 4 of the Cup Final, the Florida Panthers are trying to treat it like any other day.

Keyword: Trying.

“Obviously, it’s hard not to feel a little different,” Carter Verhaeghe said. “We know what’s at stake. It’s a little, obviously, a big game for us. We just try to take it one game at a time, one game mentality. Honestly, if you try and do anything special, it doesn’t really work out for you. I think just taking it one game at a time is the biggest thing for us.”

Added Anton Lundell: “Great feeling, for sure. But we don’t want to think too far yet. We want to play the game first, and it takes a full 60 minutes. We want to have a great game because we know they’re gonna give everything they have, so we want to be prepared for that.”

The Panthers have had a good track record over the past couple of seasons in closeout games. But this is for the Stanley Cup.

They are 6-2 in their past eight and looked dominant in many of them, sticking to the same formula and mentality that has worked so well.

But there is some concern in those two closeout losses they suffered earlier in this year’s playoffs to the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Boston Bruins.

In those games, they abandoned their suffocating defensive style and got overly offensive looking to get the kill shot in early, and in both games, the opposition rode a strong first period to take the victory.

For the Panthers to be able to end this series tonight, they will need to be patient.

“There are two things that come to mind,” coach Paul Maurice. “One of them is how we looked in the two flames we didn’t win. There is a bit of a theme in those games. And that’s the idea that you want something so badly that you’ll try to do something to make it happen before it should happen. Just don’t try to break the game open.

“The other is, and I would say this is true even of Game 3, that we’ve played our best hockey of the year in third periods under pressure. That’s when we’ve been at our best and we will try to tap into that tonight.”

2024 STANLEY CUP FINAL

EDMONTON OILERS VS. FLORIDA PANTHERS 

GAME 4

Panthers Lead Best of 7 Series 3-0

• When: Saturday, 8 p.m.
• Where: Rogers Place; Edmonton, Alberta
• National TV: ABC
• Streaming: ESPN+/Hulu
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (West Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); WCZR 101.7-FM (Treasure Coast); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL app
• Local Betting Odds — Oilers Favored: Money Line (-115); Puck line (-1.5, +210); Over/Under 5.5 (-105/-125). Series Panthers -2500
• Series Schedule, All Games 8 p.m. on ABC — Game 1: @Florida 3, Edmonton 0; Game 2: @Florida 4, Edmonton 1; Game 3: Florida 4, @Edmonton 3; Game 4: Florida at Edmonton, Saturday; Game 5*: Edmonton at Florida, Tuesday; Game 6*: Florida at Edmonton, Friday June 21; Game 7*:Edmonton at Florida, Monday June 24. (*) – If Necessary
• How They Got Here — Florida: d. Tampa Bay 4-1, Boston 4-2, New York Rangers 4-2; Edmonton: d. Los Angeles 4-1, Vancouver 4-3, Dallas 4-2.
• This Season (Florida Won 2-0) — At Florida: Panthers 5, Oilers 3 (Nov. 20). At Edmonton: Panthers 5, Oilers 2 (Dec. 17).
• Last Season: Edmonton Won 2-0
  
• All-time Regular Season Series: Oilers lead 23-16-0, 3 ties
• Postseason History: First Meeting

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS (3-0) LINES

17 Evan Rodrigues // 16 Sasha Barkov // 13 Sam Reinhart

23 Carter Verhaeghe // 9 Sam Bennett // 19 Matthew Tkachuk

23 Eetu Luostarinen // 15 Anton Lundell // 10 Vladimir Tarasenko

18 Steven Lorentz // 82 Kevin Stenlund // 8 Kyle Okposo

42 Gus Forsling // 5 Aaron Ekblad

77 Niko Mikkola //  62 Brandon Montour

91 Oliver Ekman-Larsson // 7 Dmitry Kulikov

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

41 Anthony Stolarz

Scratched: Nick Cousins, Ryan Lomberg, Tobias Bjornfot, Uvis Balinskis, Josh Mahura, Jonah Gadjovich, Spencer Knight, Rasmus Asplund, Mike Benning, Magnus Hellberg, Matt Kiersted, Will Lockwood, Mackie Samoskevich, Justin Sourdif, Patrick Giles

PROJECTED EDMONTON OILERS (0-3) LINES

93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins // 97 Connor McDavid // 18 Zach Hyman

71 Ryan McLeod // 29 Leon Draisaitl // 55 Dylan Holloway

13 Mattias Janmark // 19 Adam Henrique // 28 Connor Brown

37 Warren Foegele // 90 Corey Perry

14 Mattias Ekholm // 2 Evan Bouchard

25 Darnell Nurse // 73 Vincent Desharnais

86 Philip Broberg // 27 Brett Kulak

5 Codi Ceci

G 74 Stuart Skinner

G 30 Calvin Pickard

Edmonton Oilers Lines Courtesy NHL.Com