It has been almost six months since the Edmonton Oilers’ championship aspirations slipped away in a Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final.
On Monday night, Connor McDavid and company will get their first crack at exacting revenge against the hockey club based in Sunrise, Fla. The game will be played at Rogers Place.
McDavid, Draisaitl and Draisaitl on Stanley Cup loss: ‘It sucks’
The matchup seems to be coming at a good time for Edmonton as the Oilers (18-10-2) are riding a five-game winning streak and have won eight of their last nine games.
The Panthers (18-11-2) are coming off consecutive losses in which they have been shut out: a 3-0 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday and a 4-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday. Still, the Panthers have a 6-3-1 record in their past 10 games.
Florida’s star centre, Aleksander Barkov, missed Saturday’s game because of illness.
Stuart Skinner is expected to start in goal for the Oilers while Sergei Bobrovsky is the expected starter for the Panthers.
The Oilers’ last game, a 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday, saw centre Leon Draisaitl continue his offensive dominance of late as he scored a goal and chipped in two assists.
“We created looks early on in the year, too — it just didn’t seem to go our way,” Draisaitl said after the game on Saturday while talking about Edmonton’s offensive surge of late. “With that being said, I think that everything is a little more clean right now and we are hitting the right spots at the right time.
“I like our game right now. I think we’re playing well and starting to find our roles a little bit and our rhythm a little bit better. Obviously we have some really good teams coming up here, so we are just looking to continue that.”
–with a file from Shane Jones, The Canadian Press
Connor McDavid excited for rare chance to represent Canada
