Oilers should beat Panthers in Stanley Cup rematch Thursday, but Draisaitl injury hurts postseason chances
Florida visits Edmonton in a rematch of the past two Stanley Cup Finals on Thursday night. Matt Severance breaks it down.
The only time in NHL history that the same two teams met in three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals was Original Six clubs Montreal and Detroit from 1954-56. Entering this hockey season, it seemed quite plausible that the Panthers and Oilers might meet in a third straight Finals this summer. That will not happen, and in fact both may miss the playoffs entirely as they meet for the final time this campaign Thursday night in Edmonton.
Going deep into the Stanley Cup playoffs is incredibly draining, much more so than in the NBA or Major League Baseball. So perhaps we shouldn't be hugely surprised that Florida is struggling this year after reaching three straight Cup Finals and winning the past two. The Cats just look completely gassed, and they have been beaten up injury-wise all season.
They sit second-to-last in the East, 13 points out of the final wild-card spot with 15 games left. It's over, and no books are listing Florida playoff odds at this point. The front office seemed to come to grips with that recently in shutting down Brad Marchand (54 points) for the season, and fellow star forward Sam Reinhart (61 points) is also out and perhaps not coming back, either.
With future Hall of Fame goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in the final year of a seven-year, $70 million contract ahead of unrestricted free agency, maybe the Panthers want to get a better look at backup Daniil Tarasov the rest of the way to see if he's worth re-signing. Tarasov, on a one-year deal, has better overall numbers as the 37-year-old Bobrovsky suddenly looks old. But he's expected to be in there tonight and has a 3.29 road GAA.
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Florida is 0-2 on its current four-game road trip and has been pounded in Seattle and Vancouver. The Canucks are terrible, so that 5-2 loss Tuesday tells me the Panthers guys already are thinking about their golf games come mid-April. Bobrovsky in Vancouver became the 18th goaltender in NHL history to reach 800 career games. He remains one win away from tying Curtis Joseph (454) for seventh on the all-time wins list.
If you had asked me this time last week whether Edmonton would return to the playoffs for a seventh straight season, I would have said absolutely. But star forward Leon Draisaitl, the former Hart Trophy, Rocket Richard Trophy and Art Ross Trophy winner, went down injured Sunday vs. Nashville, and the German is expected to miss at least the rest of the regular season.
Draisaitl, who has 35 goals and 62 assists and created or scored 41% of Edmonton's goals this season, suffered the lower-body injury (they never say what in the NHL) on a hard hit from the Predators' Ozzy Wiesblatt in the first period vs. Nashville. He came back for a couple of shifts but didn't return for the second period.
This injury puts even more pressure on Connor McDavid, who leads the league with 115 points, and he's good enough to ensure a playoff spot. McDavid enters one assist shy of 800 career and would be the third-fastest to get there in terms of games played, as tonight will be his 782nd in the regular season. The only ones to get to 800 assists faster were, to no surprise, Wayne Gretzky (527 games) and Mario Lemieux (661). McDavid is -245 for a helper here.
Edmonton sits second in the Pacific Division and six points up on the final wild-card spot in the West. The team is -600 to make the playoffs, with No at +450, and I think it gets in. But I give the Oilers no shot at three-peating as Western Conference champions (+600) if Draisaitl isn't back for the postseason. If the team can't outscore people, it doesn't have the goaltending between Connor Ingram and Tristan Jarry to beat the really good clubs. Likely Ingram tonight, and he has been the better one.
Florida has won the past two Cups at Edmonton's expense and also has won four of the past five regular-season meetings but lost at home around Thanksgiving, 6-3. McDavid had a goal, Draisaitl an assist and Bobrovsky got chased in the second period after allowing four goals on 17 shots. Stuart Skinner was in the Oilers' net, but he was traded to Pittsburgh earlier this season for Jarry.
Single-game parlay pick: Oilers +1.5 (just to play it safe) and Under 7.5 at -130 via DraftKings.
