Florida Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2025 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.
In his sixth entry, Rodrigues talks about the Panthers’ 5-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 at Rogers Place, their long trip to Edmonton on Friday, and their mindset heading into Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS), when they can win the Cup again.
The trip here on Friday for the most part is doing what we kind have been doing when we come to Edmonton. We come the day before, we have a routine of what we do when we land, so it felt normal to us. And after the Game 4 loss, it felt good just to get back out there and get back on the ice.
We have our recovery stuff. Some guys bike when we get in, you try to get the blood flowing and get your legs moving. Guys do different things over the past two years, for a guy like me, and three years for some of the guys have been here. Guys have certain routines that they like to do, they feel the best at, and that’s kind of what we did. We had three games last year that we kind of went through that routine, another one this year, so we just get into a routine and do what gave us success in the past and got ready for Game 5.
There was a Dairy Queen trip on Friday, but I’m not part of the Dairy Queen crew. So the guys who were part of it stuck with it and it worked.
It was huge for us to take the crowd out of the game early here tonight. Some big plays from some guys. I thought we were on it, we were aggressive. We were poised with the puck. We felt confident. And I think we played confident and just played to our identity.
When we go back home, we’ll do what we’ve done in two or the past three years. You have your thing. There’s such a routine now. We’ve gone back home, we’ve had these two-day breaks and guys have found what works best for them and that’s what we’ll do. And that’s the benefit of having the experience, you just fall into your routine, you’re not really searching for something, you’re not wondering what to do. You’ve done it. Guys have done it, I don’t know, 20-30 times over the past few seasons, so you go home, do your routine and get ready for Game 6.
You have to treat it like another game. You obviously think about it, but it’s just another game.
As for the hype surrounding the game, I try to tune it all out. You focus on your game, you focus on what you have to do, your recovery, you just try to keep busy, just do what you usually do and I think that is the best mindset to have.
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