ILLITERATE FUCKWITS
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — It's very simple for the Florida Panthers now: Win on Monday, and you're Stanley Cup champions. Lose on Monday, and you're the first team since World War II that blew a 3-0 lead in hockey's title series.
Either way, the outcome will last forever. “It’s probably the biggest NHL game in however many years,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said. He's not wrong, and for the Panthers, the 2,464th game in franchise history is unquestionably the biggest one ever. It's for all the marbles, immortality awaiting with a win, ignominy awaiting with a loss. The fourth and final chance the Panthers will get this season to win the Stanley Cup has arrived, with Florida playing host to the Edmonton Oilers in the final game of this season on Monday night. Florida won the first three games. Edmonton won the next three. Not since 1945 has a Stanley Cup Final followed such a trajectory, and not since 1942 has a team trailed 3-0 in the title series and wound up winning — the fate that Florida is trying to avoid. “Doesn’t matter how it’s gone, doesn't matter how you draw it up,” Tkachuk said. “They lost the first three games. We lost the next three. It's even right now. It doesn’t matter what has happened to get to this point. ... This whole season comes down to one game. At home. How could you not be so jacked up for this? This is absolutely incredible, an incredible opportunity.” The first three games, all Florida. The Panthers outscored the Oilers 11-4, had more hits and more blocked shots and looked completely on their way. The last three games, all Edmonton. The Oilers outscored the Panthers 18-5, are scoring on 22.5% of their shots on goal — a video-game rate — and have nearly twice as many blocked shots in that span as Florida does. Add it all up, it's 3-3. Game 7 is here. “You can look at every storyline, you can analyse everything, you can say how we match up, they got the momentum, we’re on our heels. It doesn’t matter," Panthers forward Kyle Okposo said. "It’s your next game. You're only as good as your next game.” Never mind the roller-coaster ride the teams took to get here. It's only the 18th Game 7 in Stanley Cup Final history. Home teams have won 12 of the previous 17 (a good sign for the Panthers), but road teams have won each of the last three (a good sign for the Oilers). Panthers coach Paul Maurice was asked if Game 7 will define legacies, including his own, given the historical significance of potentially wasting a 3-0 series lead. “I will let you know at the end of it,” Maurice said. Maurice has spent this series hearing questions about winning the Cup (something people try not to talk about until they've actually won the thing), 3-0 leads, the pressure that comes when clinching opportunities were wasted as they were in Game 4, Game 5 and Game 6, and plenty more along those lines. He's a smart guy. He gets why those questions are coming. But when he was sidling over to players for quick chats during practice on Sunday, it wasn't about big-picture ramifications. It was taking the temperature of a team that he still fully believes in, especially going into Game 7. “There's a far bigger contextual story that means nothing to me now, but it means everything to you,” Maurice said. “That’s the stories you have to write. That’s actually what makes this whole thing awesome is the context of it. Nobody ever, ever, has played on a backdoor rink in Canada and scored the Game 3 overtime winner in the qualifying round. It's one game, always, that excites you. And that is the context of this game and we will live in that context.” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov — it'll either be him or Oilers captain Connor McDavid accepting the Stanley Cup from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Monday night — concurs. Indeed, this is it. Championship or collapse. By Monday night, the Panthers's story will be written. “I was one of those kids for sure that played by himself whenever I was outdoors or at home ... thinking, ‘This is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, maybe even overtime,’" Barkov said. "You think about those moments. I’ve had many of those memories, but now it’s becoming a truth tomorrow for sure. Exciting. The most exciting time to be a hockey player.”
Paul Coffey had Wayne Gretzky on his side in 1984 as the Great One was trying to cement his legacy with a first Stanley Cup to bookend his 200-point seasons and his Hart trophies.
There was heat on 99 to win, just as it’s there today with 97. Gretzky won in his fifth year, and this is Connor McDavid’s ninth. “I don’t know if it’s pressure, it’s just wanting it so bad,” said Coffey, who looks after the defencemen as the Edmonton Oilers's assistant coach. “And nobody wants it more than 97 on our team.” He won’t say that publicly, of course. But, winning a championship for the greats is not always linear. It took Sidney Crosby four years after being draughted No. 1 in Pittsburgh, Gretzky five in Edmonton and Mario Lemieux seven with the Penguins. A good but long time, like Steve Yzerman taking 14 years in Detroit or Alex Ovechkin taking the same in Washington, so lots of “what-ifs” and “will-I-evers” as the years pass. “I still remember when the Islanders beat us four straight (in 1983), and Wayne had 196 points, and we’re leaving our dressing room, and Wayne was so down,” said Coffey. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ He says, ‘I’ll never be like Bryan Trottier or Guy Lafleur until I win a cup.’ It’s not the end-all be-all, but it certainly helps.” What was it like for Coffey to be in the dressing room for a big game knowing Gretzky would do something special? What does it do for a team knowing the best player is on their team? “I think it was in the L.A. series … where Wayne was asked, ‘Do you still get nervous going to the rink?'” Coffey said. “He said, ‘Absolutely, I’m nervous, until I walk in here and I see Connor, then it’s all good. He’s here!” The same thing happened back in the early Oiler days. “Looking back to our early days, we weren’t angels,” Coffey said. “But we always knew if the big guy was in bed by midnight, we had a chance. “That’s the truth, that’s the truth.” It isn’t just another game for McDavid — no Game 7 is. Not when you’re being compared to Gretzky, but he’s sticking with the process line of thought. “This (Game 7) is not your ordinary game,” he said. “Everybody understands that, but you’ve got to make it as ordinary as possible. You have to prepare like you always do, stick to your routine.” But, when asked how it feels to finally be here — one small step for mankind, from a cup after being the first pick in the 2015 draught — he takes a second to answer. “That’s a pretty broad question. What’s it like? Yeah, it’s been a long road to get to this point, it’s been a lot of ups and downs, a lot of lessons along the way, but it takes a lot of them. It really does,” he said. Corey Perry watched McDavid at work in Game 6, on a night when they didn’t need his points, but he saved a goal by Sasha Barkov with his checking. He knows how badly the Oilers captain wants this first cup. Yes, it is part of his legacy. It’s Perry’s 11th Game 7 in his career, but first in the finals, and nobody knows the thin line between winning and losing. Maybe not so much for the greats, who will find a way back, at some time, but maybe not. “You don’t take anything for granted. Half these guys may never be back. As I’ve said, I won one cup when I was 22, and it took me 12 years to get back for another shot. These chances — they don’t come along every day. I haven’t won a second one,” he said. But at least he’s won one. Does he feel McDavid is thinking this is his shot? “I’m not inside his head,” said Perry. “But you have to think that way. This is his chance,” he said. “All the greats have done it. He’s pretty much in that category.” Perry is comforted to know McDavid is on his side, though. As he says, “Everybody grows up wanting to be the hero in a Game 7, and hopefully, it’s in this room and you go down in history as being the hero.” There’s a good chance 97 will be that guy. “He can do more magical things at any point in the game,” said Perry. “Not just this year in the playoffs but throughout his career. It’s not a switch he flips, but all of a sudden, he’s dancing through three or four guys the other night (during Game 5 to set up Perry). We count on him a lot. That’s why he’s the greatest.” But Perry has seen the other side of McDavid as the playoffs have gone on, too. Like Crosby with the Penguins, his willingness to subjugate his offence to check, to do other things that don’t appear on the stats sheet. “Like that play he made on Barkov the other night. His speed does a lot of checking for him. That shift, there’s a turnover off the wall, Barkov has the puck, and Connor’s right there. Pretty much goes into the empty net if Connor doesn’t slash or whatever the call was (hooking),” said Perry.
Nobody on the current Oilers knows what McDavid is going through more than Leon Draisaitl, who was sitting beside 97 at the podium Sunday after practice as one of the top 10 players in the world.
But the eyeballs aren’t on him like they are McDavid. What’s it like having the No. 1 player in the game in an Oilers sweater? “Every game we go into, we know we have the best player in the world on our side,” said Draisaitl. “But the league is really, really hard to just go through one player or two or three. You need a whole team, like in these playoffs with our penalty kill winning us hockey games. But it is a great feeling having the best player in world on our side.” Going into a Game 7 with the best player on the planet, Kris Knoblauch? “Definitely an added bonus,” said the Oilers coach, with a big smile. “Not only having the best player but one who’s playing extremely well right now. Not only do you have the advantage with him on the ice, but it breeds confidence throughout the room. Players are looking around the room and saying, ‘Who’s ready to go, who’s contributing?’ and they see their leader, their best player ready to go. Yes, gives so much confidence to the rest of the group,” said Knoblauch.
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