EDMONTON – It takes more than a Game 1 loss to shake the Florida Panthers’ confidence.
Of course, letting a two-goal lead slip away in their 4-3 overtime loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday wasn’t the ideal way to start the best-of-7 series. The Panthers have been through enough the past three seasons, though, to understand that there’s a lot of series still ahead of them, beginning with Game 2 at Rogers Place on Friday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).
“We’ve got a lot of battle scars on us from the last few years, and we’ve been through way worse than just yesterday,” Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said Thursday. “We can be better, we can adjust a few things and come out tomorrow and try to get a win here and get some momentum going back home.”
This is the fifth time since the start of the 2023 playoffs that the Panthers have lost Game 1 of a series. They rebounded to win all but one of those series, including twice after losing the first two games, with the lone exception being their five-game loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final.
That was Florida’s first experience in the Cup Final and it had a host of injuries it could not overcome. Now in their third consecutive Cup Final, including defeating the Oilers in seven games last season, the Panthers are confident they can rebound in Game 2.
“We learn more from adversity than we do from winning,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “Every time you lose games or go through series where you’re down 2-0 or losing in the Cup Final a couple of years ago, you learn a lot. It’s just sticking with it and being mentally strong. There are ups and downs in the series and that’s what happens.”
There are some areas of their game the Panthers need to clean up, though. The Oilers had a 15-6 advantage in high-danger shots on goal in Game 1, per NHL EDGE Advanced Stats, and scored three of their four goals on high-danger shots.
Florida had trouble handling Edmonton’s forecheck at times, which led to sustained shifts in the defensive zone. The Oilers outshot the Panthers 14-7 in the first period, 14-2 in the third period and 10-3 after the opening 1:48 of overtime.
“We went through some video and see the things we can do better through the neutral zone,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “Maybe a little bit more offensive zone time, some things we look at, but they played a good game. They were solid defensively. They blocked a lot of shots. And we kind of knew that coming in there’s not a lot of space out there, not a lot of plays to be made, really.”
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