‘Phenomenal’: LSU’s Jayden Daniels plays the game with reckless abandon
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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
BATON ROUGE, La. — In a scene that’s become all too familiar this season, LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels deftly escaped the pocket only to take off and run with reckless abandon, absorbing the type of body blows that make coaches and fans alike wince.
No, this wasn’t that cringeworthy hit against Florida State or that breathtaking hit against Ole Miss or that freight train of a hit against Mississippi State. This was the shot Daniels took on the road at Missouri, the one that finally knocked him out of the game. After corralling an errant snap, splitting two defenders and cutting upfield, he crossed the goal line for an apparent touchdown. But just as he relaxed and dropped his shoulders into a defenseless posture, linebacker Chuck Hicks came out of nowhere and drilled him squarely in the back and tackled him to the ground.
As tight end Mason Taylor pleaded with officials for a personal foul, Daniels popped up quickly and tried to play it off. But he felt a sharp pain in his ribs growing more acute by the second. Unsteady on his feet, he tapped his helmet to signal he needed a substitution. He fell to a knee about 10 yards short of the sideline, where a pair of trainers huddled around him.
“It’s a TV timeout,” the trainers advised him. “You’ve got time.”
“Nah,” Daniels said. “I’ve got to get off this field.”
If he was going to get looked at, it wasn’t going to be in full view of everyone in the opposing stadium. Best not to let them see him vulnerable.
As he was helped to the privacy of the medical tent, coach Brian Kelly checked on his star QB.
“You good?” Kelly asked. “Can you finish the game?”
“Give me a minute,” Daniels said. “I just need a minute.”
Inside the tent, while his ribs were being examined, Daniels noticed his left hand was swollen. That was new, he thought. “I think it got hit by a helmet,” he said, unsure of when the injury occurred. The trainers asked if he was OK, and he didn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” he told them, “I need to go back out there.”
Backup quarterback Garrett Nussmeier had finished out the series, which continued because of a false start penalty that negated Daniels’ touchdown and ended with a missed field goal. After Missouri went three-and-out, Daniels went back in the game. Four plays later, he threw a strike to Malik Nabers for a 35-yard reception. Every little movement stung, though he tried not to let it show. Throwing the football, he said, “hurt a lot.”
But on third-and-3, Daniels took one step backward, planted his back leg on the Missouri 40-yard line and took off. Bruised ribs and aching hand be damned, he knifed through the front seven, past a hapless linebacker, past a sprinting safety and ran untouched until he was tackled while falling into the end zone to give LSU its first lead of the game.
“I could feel the pain in the moment,” Daniels recalled, “but I had to help my team win.”
LSU did win as Daniels completed 15 of 21 passes for 259 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran for 130 yards and a score. Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz found Daniels on the field after the game, gave him a hug and tapped his helmet in a sign of respect. When he met with reporters later, Drinkwitz said Daniels is “as good as any quarterback I’ve ever gone against.”
Kelly handed Daniels the game ball in the locker room and called him a “warrior” a year after wondering if Daniels, at a slender 190 pounds, could handle the job.
The challenge ahead is twofold, beginning with a trip to Alabama on Saturday (7:45 p.m. ET, CBS). The outcome will likely determine LSU’s future as a playoff contender and Daniels’ status as a Heisman Trophy front-runner.
To reach those tandem goals, Daniels will have to keep posting show-stopping numbers and keep getting up after show-stopping hits.
“They’re the No. 1 offensive team in the country and it starts with the quarterback, Jayden Daniels,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said Monday. “I mean, this guy is a phenomenal player.”
KELLY INITIALLY HAD his doubts about Daniels, whether it was his durability or his decision-making. Kelly said they brought Daniels in from Arizona State and weren’t exactly sold that “he’s our guy.”
They weren’t sure he’d beat out Nussmeier for the starting job. When Daniels injured his foot shortly after arriving on campus, Kelly groaned, “Oh, he’s from the West Coast. He’s not very tough.”
Kelly smiled thinking back on that moment. He has never been so happy to be proved wrong.
Kelly said last year’s game between LSU and Alabama provided a sample of what Daniels was capable of.
Daniels remembers standing on the sideline inside Tiger Stadium and watching what seemed impossible as Alabama quarterback Bryce Young followed the five D’s of dodgeball: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. The reigning Heisman Trophy winner at the time looked like Houdini as he escaped the LSU pass rush and found a wide-open Ja’Corey Brooks for the go-ahead score with less than five minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Then, Daniels said, Young turned toward the LSU sideline and smirked.
A year later, Daniels remembers it clear as day. The defining moment of the game and that season wasn’t the touchdown and 2-point conversion later in overtime, he said, it was the drive LSU put together in response to Young’s heroics: a methodical seven-play, 75-yard march in less than three minutes, featuring a 31-yard run by Daniels to extend the drive on third down and a 7-yard touchdown pass to retake the lead.
Daniels relished the chance to be a part of what he’d only dreamed of as a kid — Alabama-LSU, at night, in prime time. “Those are the big moments,” he said.
After the game, Daniels and Young spoke. The Southern California natives have known one another since they were in elementary school, competing in youth games and camps. “You know,” Daniels said of last spring’s No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, “he’s never beaten me.”
LSU’s 1-point victory over Alabama catapulted the Tigers to the SEC championship game. No one — especially not Kelly — is saying that Daniels was anything other than good during his first season at LSU. He threw for just shy of 3,000 yards, 17 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions. And he ran for a team-high 885 yards. He threw the most catchable ball in the country (83% catchable pass rate).
But he rarely took shots downfield, ranking 103rd in rate of pass attempts 20-plus yards downfield (10.6%).
The lack of explosive plays was a drag on the offense.
During a practice before this season, Kelly said, he pulled Daniels aside.
“This drill,” he told his quarterback, “is set up for you to be aggressive and to make those tough throws. Don’t be afraid to put it into tight coverage. Don’t be afraid to make that throw that is being contested.”
Kelly wanted Daniels to trust his eyes, his arm and his receivers.
“For some reason, everything had to be wide open or it wasn’t open at all,” Kelly said.
Nabers admitted he got frustrated with Daniels’ careful nature as well. The team’s No. 1 receiver recalled another practice this summer when he couldn’t get Daniels to look his way.
“Bro,” Nabers told Daniels, “just throw it up.”
Daniels told Nabers he wasn’t open, and he wasn’t technically wrong. Nabers was garnering a lot of double coverage.
“I don’t care. Just throw it up,” Nabers told him. “They look like they’re beside me, but I’m getting past them.”
Nabers said they watched film together that evening and Nabers pointed out how he was, in fact, pulling away from the defensive backs as the play developed. Nabers said Daniels relented, “All right, I’m going to give you some chances.”
The defense still double-covered Nabers during the next day’s practice, but this time Daniels gave him a chance.
“And he was launching them and I was jumping over people and just making plays,” Nabers recalled, smiling. “I was like, ‘Bro, I told you.'”
Nabers sat in the corner of LSU’s indoor facility last week, looked out on the practice field and reminisced. Because Daniels joined the team so late last year — the day before spring practice — and he wasn’t named the starting quarterback until September, Nabers said they didn’t have the time they needed to get on the same page. But this offseason was different.
They spent so many early mornings out here, Nabers said, running through the entire route tree. Countless reps. Countless conversations. Daniels and his receivers learned about one another over the course of months — on the field and off it. And the result was a combination of chemistry and trust that’s paying off today.
But there was another piece that went into Daniels’ transformation this season. Rarely does a quarterback go from being timid to decisive.
Preparation, Daniels said, has been the key.
IT COULDN’T HAVE been later than 6 a.m., Kelly recalled, noting that the sun hadn’t risen by the time he pulled up to the football facility the morning after the Week 6 Missouri game. As he parked his matte black Tesla, Kelly looked around the mostly empty lot and noticed Daniels’ car.
Checking to make sure Daniels hadn’t left it there the night before, Kelly walked to the quarterback room, where he found Daniels in his own world, watching film.
Daniels not only skipped sleeping off his injuries, he beat almost the entire coaching staff to the office.
“OK,” Kelly said he thought, “this is a little different.”
Kelly said it’s the first time he has ever been surprised like that. And, he added, it’s a credit to the habits Daniels developed this season. It’s like clockwork. Daniels comes in early every morning, watches film on his own and then spends a few hours in the training room before most of his teammates have even started their day. From there, it’s on to practice and then back home.
“He is a pro,” Kelly said. “Everything he does, a pro would do it the same way.”
True to his routine, Daniels was back in the quarterback room on a Wednesday morning during the bye week. A graphic of a pointing Joe Burrow looming large over his right shoulder, Daniels sat down, shut the lights off and began scribbling notes as a recording of the Alabama-Tennessee game played on the projector. It took half the season to fill up his notebook, he said, so he switched to an iPad for more storage.
He put his pen down and gripped a football with both hands as he spoke to a reporter. The light from the projector illuminated the embossed words on the worn leather: “National Football League.”
Yes, Daniels said, he thought long and hard about turning pro after last season. He spent about a week and a half deliberating the pros and cons. Five years of college had seemed like more than enough. But he knew the quarterback class was going to be crowded. Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud would be the first two quarterbacks off the board — “and rightfully so,” he said. While he believed he was just as talented as them, Daniels acknowledged that not everyone felt the same way.
“It wasn’t my time yet,” he said. “It was best for me to come back as one of the few returning starters in the SEC. So it was like, ‘OK, I’m going to come back and not live with any regrets.'”
Kelly didn’t take the decision for granted.
“I thought we had to show him the plan,” he said. “I thought if we didn’t recruit him, if we didn’t show him why we felt it was important for him to be here, if we didn’t open up avenues for NIL, if we didn’t do those things, I think it could have made it easier for him to go.”
Kelly paused for a moment when asked whether Daniels is making more money now than he would have as a rookie in the NFL.
“Yes,” he said.
Daniels acknowledged that NIL made his choice to come back easier, but that it wasn’t the end-all, be-all. He knew he had room to improve if he was going to leave no doubt that he was worthy of a high draft pick. “I wanted to take my game to the next level,” he said.
So he changed his practice habits, getting in early each day. He also incorporated virtual reality training, donning a headset three times a week to get a better feel for the defenses that he’ll face and the look and feel of opposing stadiums.
He did some serious self-scouting as well, he said. And what he found was that while he could recognize the coverage and spot the open receiver, he was too hesitant.
“It’s a mental battle,” he said. “My preparation, that’s what made me confident. Last year, I was thinking a lot while I was playing. This year, I just wanted to go out there, play football, just play fast and have fun.”
Daniels has made a Burrow-esque Year 2 leap. He’s tied for the FBS lead in touchdown passes (25) — despite throwing only three interceptions — and ranks second in Total QBR (91.8). His rate of passes thrown 20 or more yards downfield per game has gone up from 10.6 to 14.9; no one has more completions of 20-plus yards this season (49).
If he’d turned pro and spent the year as a backup, he might never have gotten the reps needed to develop a more well-rounded game. In conversations with scouts, Kelly said he has told them, “You won’t have to worry about who’s first in, who’s last to leave, the tone in your locker room. You already have a pro.”
DANIELS BROKE INTO the open field against Auburn and decided, now’s the time.
He was going to show Nussmeier and the rest of the quarterbacks they were wrong about his inability to slide. But to quote the immortal Woody in “Toy Story,” what happened next wasn’t exactly a textbook slide. It was more like Daniels was “falling with style.”
“I turn to the sideline and everybody’s cheering,” Daniels recalled.
But they were laughing, too.
“It was awful,” Kelly said.
He asked Daniels whether he’d played baseball before. Daniels shook his head no.
“It looks like it,” Kelly told him.
So maybe he slides differently than most people, Daniels said, “but it’s effective.”
“It still worked out the same way,” he added. “I still pop right back up.”
True. But Kelly and the rest of the coaches are glad he’s at least making an effort to get down and protect himself from those big hits. They marvel how, given his slight frame, he keeps popping back up. A staff member compared him to Gumby — you can’t break bones that aren’t there.
Strength and conditioning staffers have told Kelly that although Daniels — standing 6-foot-4 — weighs only about 190 pounds, his body density is close to 170.
“He just needs to take what’s available and then be smart,” Kelly said. “I think he’s more aware of it now, and hopefully he’ll continue to make a better choice than getting cut in half.”
Daniels knows it’s a long season and he needs to protect himself.
“If we want to accomplish what we need to accomplish,” he said, “I need to be healthy.”
But just as he has to be unafraid in the passing game, he can’t be timid tucking the ball and running. He can’t help that he’s hardwired to fight for extra yards. It’s a product, he said, of playing defense growing up.
“I’ve always been a fearless runner,” he said. “Even though I’m a quarterback now, I was never afraid of contact.”
As a kid, he played in the streets of San Bernardino, California, where he said the rule was if it’s not broken, “shake it off.” After you get over the initial shock of a big hit, he added, the pain is usually manageable.
“He’s a tough kid,” Kelly said. “Tougher than I ever thought he was.”
The team, in turn, feeds off that toughness.
“I don’t know what he’s been throughout his life, but when you come to Louisiana, we’re different,” Nabers said. “When we play football, we don’t care. We don’t care if we got a bump or bruise. We don’t care if we got a hurt ankle, we’re going to get back up and we still keep going. So I think that he found his Louisiana way. That’s him showing that, ‘I’m from Cali, but I’m in The Boot now.'”
No one appreciates it more than Nabers when Daniels hangs in the pocket and throws passes deep downfield. But he’s no different from the rest of us when Daniels flees the pocket. He becomes a fan. He said he’ll catch himself thinking, “Oh, he’s breaking out, he’s juking, he just broke a tackle.”
“He’ll be flying,” Nabers said, forgetting that he needs to transition into a blocker.
And then Daniels runs into traffic, and Nabers is a fan all over again — this time a concerned one. He’ll find himself shouting, “Dude, go down, go down.”
“Damn,” he said, thinking back to one of those midair collisions, “that’s got to hurt.
“He said it doesn’t hurt. But I’m like, ‘Yeah, but one of them will.'”
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Ryan S. Clark
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Kristen Shilton
South Florida is the sort of place where bizarre doesn’t just live, it thrives. Jake Walman, who was fined for squirting water in Game 3, scored what appeared to be the game-winning goal for the Edmonton Oilers in the third period … only for Sam Reinhart to score for the Florida Panthers with 20 seconds left in regulation … before Leon Draisaitl scored the actual game winner in overtime to give Edmonton a 5-4 win and tie the Stanley Cup Final at 2-2.
Game 4 was so erratic that even Florida Man likely thought it was too much. Exactly how hectic are we talking? How about the Panthers opening with a 3-0 lead in the first period, only to see the Oilers pull Stuart Skinner, replace him with Calvin Pickard and then score three goals of their own in the second period.
That set the stage for a defensive deadlock in the third that appeared to first be broken when Walman scored with 6:24 left, only to have Florida even the score. Draisaitl finished the job for Edmonton in overtime.
At this point, you know the drill. Ryan S. Clark and Kristen Shilton take a look at what worked and what didn’t for each team, while identifying which players to watch in Game 5 and pondering the big questions for the Oilers and the Panthers come Saturday.
Is the conversation after Game 4 more about the comeback — or what forced the Oilers to need to come back in the first place?
After the Oilers allowed two goals in each period of Game 3, they allowed three in the first period of Game 4. In total, the first period marked the sixth time in the first 10 periods of this series that the Panthers have come away with multiple goals. That’s what forced Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch and his staff to make a quick adjustment to avoid a disaster similar to Game 3.
Knoblauch’s decision to remove Skinner to start the second led to Pickard stopping all 10 shots he faced in the frame. It helped that the Oilers went from a 38.4% shot share in the first to a 55.6% shot share in the second, resulting in three goals. It was just their second multigoal period during the Cup Final.
Everything was going so well in the third. Their defensive structure allowed eight combined high-danger scoring chances in the second and third period, a contrast from the seven they allowed in the first alone. To be 20 seconds away from tying the series all while the Panthers had a shot share that was greater than 60%? That’s what made Reinhart’s goal so disheartening.
But in the end, Draisaitl’s game winner drew the Oilers level entering Game 5 on Saturday. — Clark
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Leon Draisaitl scores OT winner for Oilers in Game 4
Leon Draisaitl notches the game-winning goal with this one-handed effort in a pulsating Game 4 that levels the series for Oilers.
The Panthers tried to call game in the first period. And, briefly, it looked like they succeeded. They pounced early with a pair of Matthew Tkachuk power-play goals (his first points of the Cup Final), and Anton Lundell added insult to Oilers’ injury by extending Florida’s lead to three with just 41 seconds left in the first period — a 20-minute frame where the Panthers outshot Edmonton 17-7 and outchanced them 21-5. Florida’s furious forecheck once again appeared to flummox the Oilers.
But Edmonton made a goalie change to start the second, and their karma shifted along with it. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (on the power play), Darnell Nurse and Vasily Podkolzin erased all of Florida’s first-period work and put the Panthers on their heels.
And Pickard had Florida’s number in net, keeping the Panthers’ deep well of offensive threats from finding an equalizer until 20 seconds were left in regulation and Reinhart found an opening.
Florida’s eventual loss in extra time felt stunning. The Panthers’ uncharacteristic mistakes — players caught below the goal line, losing track of assignments, turnovers — ultimately doomed them in a game they were on track to win handily. Now all that matters is how they rebound in the quick turnaround to Game 5. — Shilton
Arda Öcal’s Three Stars of Game 4
Draisaitl set the record for most overtime goals in a single postseason, with four — after setting the record for most overtime goals in the regular season. He is the third player in Stanley Cup Final history with multiple OT goals in a single series — along with Don Raleigh in 1950 with the New York Rangers vs. the Detroit Red Wings and John LeClair in 1993 with the Montreal Canadiens vs. the Los Angeles Kings.
After coming in to relieve Skinner, Pickard proceeded to make 22 saves on 23 shots (the lone goal coming in the final minute of regulation with Florida’s net empty). Pickard is the first goaltender to win a Stanley Cup Final game in relief since 2015, when Andrei Vasilevskiy played 9:13 in relief of injured Ben Bishop. Pickard is also the fourth goalie to win seven straight decisions in the playoffs who didn’t start his team’s first game of the postseason, joining Chris Osgood (2008), Jacques Plante (1969) and Cam Ward (2006).
Tkachuk scored his first two goals of the Cup Final to open the game up quickly for Florida. This was also the first time Tkachuk has scored two goals in a Cup Final game. His fifth career playoff power-play goal set a franchise record.
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Matthew Tkachuk scores again to make it 2-0 Panthers
Matthew Tkachuk doubles the Panthers’ lead, again scoring on the power play against the Oilers in Game 4.
Honorable mention: This series!
This Cup Final has been incredibly entertaining. Between two overtime games, a blowout and dueling three-goal periods in Game 4, there has been no shortage of drama and intrigue in this Cup Final rematch. This series is the third in NHL history to see at least seven total goals in the first four games (1980 and 1918 were the others) and, at 32 goals, is tied for the fourth most goals in Cup Final history through four games. Bring on Game 5!
Players to watch in Game 5
Pickard’s work in relief of Skinner has become rather instrumental in the Oilers establishing some sense of consistency. The strongest example of that came in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings, when Pickard was named the starter in Game 3 and would win four straight to advance Edmonton to the second round. He won the first two games of the second round against the Vegas Golden Knights before an injury prompted the Oilers to return to Skinner.
Pickard was perfect in the second period of Game 4 and was nearly flawless until Reinhart’s goal late in the third. But when it reached overtime? Pickard stopped every shot — with some help from the crossbar — to finish the evening stopping 22 of 23 for a .957 save percentage over 51:18. And that was with the Panthers having a shot share greater than 57% over the final two periods. — Clark
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Calvin Pickard’s outrageous save keeps Oilers in game
Calvin Pickard’s incredible tip-save onto the crossbar stops Panthers from notching an overtime game-winner.
The Panthers’ leading scorer in the playoffs wasn’t at his best in Game 4 — and Florida will need a return to form Saturday. Bennett took a second period infraction that led to Edmonton’s first goal off a power-play marker by Nugent-Hopkins, and he was tagged again in the third period for tripping right when Florida had found its lost momentum.
Add to that Bennett collected just a single assist on a night where the Panthers struggled for offense after an explosive first period. That’s not the sort of impact Florida requires from Bennett — and all eyes will be on how he rebounds in Game 5.
It was a positive for Florida to see Tkachuk get rolling Thursday, but the Panthers’ offense has so often run through Bennett. (His breakaway goal in Game 3 was particularly nice.) Florida will be right to expect Bennett to step it up when the series shifts back to Edmonton. And if any player can turn things around in a hurry, it’s Bennett, who was the Conn Smythe Trophy favorite ahead of Game 4 for a reason. — Shilton
Big questions for Game 5
Did the Oilers’ comeback potentially unlock a new way to defend the Panthers?
The Oilers have had troubles with preventing breakaways. They’ve struggled with giving up the big period on more than one occasion. In fact, that was the narrative of a Game 3 that might have been their worst performance of the postseason.
The first period of Game 4 seemed to point to another defensive challenge for the Oilers — only for them to walk away with a win and the belief that they might have found a solution for their aforementioned issues.
In Game 4, the Oilers:
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Found ways to take away the passing lanes, which is why they went from allowing 17 shots in the first period to 23 shots for the entire rest of the game.
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Blocked 28 shots.
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Significantly prevented the Panthers from having high-danger chances despite the possession numbers. In fact, the Panthers finished with one high-danger scoring chance in overtime while having a 57.14% shot share.
Even with Reinhart’s late goal, the overall structure the Oilers used for the rest of Game 4 — coupled with Pickard’s performance — had them looking like the team that has led Connor McDavid to repeatedly state that they can play defense. But can they harness what they did in Game 4 for Game 5 and beyond? And if so, will that be the key to the rest of the series? — Clark
Can Florida rattle Pickard?
The Panthers had Skinner’s number in this series, scoring eight goals on the netminder through Game 3 and the first period of Game 4. Pickard, on the other hand, was excellent in relief of Skinner on Thursday, making 18 consecutive saves before allowing Reinhart’s goal late in the third.
It’s not as if Pickard wasn’t challenged. He made several terrific stops on the Panthers’ top scorers and proved he was still in peak form despite not starting a game in weeks.
That doesn’t bode well for Florida. Even though Reinhart did get one past Pickard late, it didn’t seem to shake Pickard’s confidence. He was terrific in extra time, doing more than enough to keep pace with Sergei Bobrovsky at the other end, and ultimately securing the victory for Edmonton.
So what sort of challenge will a goaltending switch present for Florida in Game 5? Pickard was a sensational 6-0 in the postseason before getting hurt in the second round. If Pickard can be that game-changing presence in the crease that the Oilers are looking for, what will it take for the Panthers to respond and recapture an offensive edge? — Shilton
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Greg Wyshynski
SUNRISE, Fla. — The Edmonton Oilers didn’t just win Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final to even their series with the Florida Panthers at 2-2. They accomplished something the NHL hasn’t seen in 106 years.
With their 5-4 overtime win on Thursday night, Edmonton became the first road team in Stanley Cup Final history to rally from a deficit of at least three goals and win since the Montreal Canadiens rallied to defeat the Seattle Metropolitans in overtime in 1919.
Leon Draisaitl‘s 11th goal of the playoffs ended Game 4 in extra time for the Oilers. Home teams with at least a three-goal lead in the Stanley Cup Final were 158-1 before Thursday night.
“I think that once again it shows you that our group never quits,” Draisaitl said. “I think we believe that no matter how bad it is, if we get over that hump of adversity we’re going to keep pushing, we’re going to keep coming, and eventually it’ll break.”
Draisaitl made NHL history of his own in the victory. This was his NHL record fourth overtime game-winning goal in the 2025 postseason, the most ever in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He also set the regular-season record with six this season.
Draisaitl’s dramatic goal Thursday night came in a game in which the Oilers trailed 3-0 after the first period.
“We sat back too much,” defenseman Jake Walman said. “We watched a little too much. We didn’t get to our game at all in that first period. That’s pretty much the thing we talked about in the intermission — get to our game and see what happens.”
That sentiment was conveyed in an impactful intermission speech by forward Corey Perry, the 40-year-old in his 20th NHL season, whose words inspired and refocused the Oilers for a second period that saw them tie the score at 3-3.
“I’m not going to share exactly what he said, but the message was that he’s been in these moments,” Draisaitl said. “He’s not a guy that speaks up or yells at guys all the time. That’s not his character. So you know when a guy like that — with that many games, that much experience, he’s won everything there is to win, he knows how to win — when he speaks up, you listen. It grabs your attention.”
The Oilers didn’t have that attention at the start.
Edmonton was trying to rebound from a devastating 6-1 loss in Game 3. Goaltender Stuart Skinner, who was pulled from that loss, got the start Thursday night because of his ability to bounce back after defeats along with his 6-0 record in Game 4s in his career.
But Skinner’s night would end early, as he was replaced by goalie Calvin Pickard in the second period. Pickard made 18 straight saves before Florida’s Sam Reinhart sent the game to overtime with a goal at 19:40 the third period, scoring with goalie Sergei Bobrovsky on the bench for an extra skater.
“It’s hard to describe the situation that he gets put in,” Draisaitl said of Pickard. “We’re down 3-0. He’s coming in. He’s cold. It’s not easy, and he makes those stops at the key moments when we really need them. He’s one of the best in the league at making the right save at the right time. He’s been nothing but spectacular for us.”
Pickard took over the Oilers’ crease for an ineffective Skinner in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings, going 6-0 for Edmonton. But an injury in their second-round series against Vegas gave Skinner the starting job again through the next two rounds.
Pickard came up with some clutch stops throughout his 22-save effort in Game 4, none bigger than a glove save on Florida’s Sam Bennett that sent the puck behind him off the crossbar and out of trouble in overtime.
“I read it pretty well,” Pickard said. “I looked in my glove and it wasn’t in there. I heard the crowd ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and I got a good bounce.”
Pickard became the sixth goaltender to win a Stanley Cup Final game in relief.
The Oilers started Game 4 allowing a barrage of shots to the Panthers and once again parading to the penalty box. Matthew Tkachuk scored to make it 1-0 on a 5-on-3 power player with Evander Kane in the penalty box for high-sticking and Darnell Nurse in there for tripping. Tkachuk scored again 5:16 later on a power-play goal after Mattias Ekholm went off for high-sticking Brad Marchand. Center Anton Lundell made it 3-0 with 42 seconds left in the first period.
Skinner gave up three goals on 17 shots on Thursday, struggling again after lasting 43:27 in the Oilers’ loss in Game 3, in which he gave up five goals on 23 shots. Pickard entered on Monday night and stopped seven of eight shots.
With Pickard between the pipes, the Oilers began their comeback. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins converted on the power play — on one of three penalties the Panthers took in the period — from McDavid and Draisaitl. Nurse snuck one past Bobrovsky at 12:47 to cut the Florida advantage to one goal.
Just 10 seconds after Nurse scored, Florida captain Aleksander Barkov took a delay of game penalty. It was the moment the Oilers were waiting for: the best defensive forward in the NHL in the penalty box and a chance for their offensive stars to tie the score. But Bobrovsky was all the penalty kill needed, making five saves, including two on McDavid on the same scoring chance.
Undaunted, the Oilers kept fighting and tied the score with 4:55 left in the second period. Nurse set up forward Vasily Podkolzin for his second of the playoffs, knotting it at 3-3.
It remained that way until 6:24 of the third period when a great Oilers forecheck pinned the Panthers’ top line in their zone before Walman blasted the puck for the 4-3 lead. But the Oilers couldn’t hold it, as Florida knotted the score on Reinhart’s late goal.
After an overtime that saw both teams get their chances, it was Draisaitl who ended it at 11:18. After a great pass by Podkolzin to set him up, Draisaitl pushed the puck toward the Florida net and it deflected off defenseman Niko Mikkola and past Bobrovsky (30 saves).
Draisaitl is now tied with McDavid with 32 points in the playoffs. He is the fifth player in NHL history with at least 30 points in consecutive postseasons and is tied with McDavid and Mark Messier for second all-time with three 30-point postseasons in total; Wayne Gretzky did it six times.
“He’s as clutch as it gets,” Pickard said of Draisaitl. “He’s been playing great. Always scoring big goals at big times, and now we’re going home with momentum.”
For Florida, it was a squandered opportunity to move one win away from hoisting the Stanley Cup for the second straight season.
“It’s the best of three,” Tkachuk said. “With losing this one tonight, we’ve got to go in there and win one eventually. So hopefully you can do it in Game 5.”
LOS ANGELES — Cincinnati Reds left-hander Wade Miley is accused in court documents of providing drugs to the late Tyler Skaggs, the Los Angeles Angels pitcher who died of an accidental overdose in 2019.
Skaggs’ former agent, Ryan Hamill, said in a deposition that Skaggs told him he was using pain pills containing oxycodone that were provided by Miley.
The deposition is part of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family against the Angels in California. A former publicist for the Angels, Eric Kay, was convicted in Texas of providing the fentanyl-laced pills that an autopsy found contributed to Skaggs’ death. Kay was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
Skaggs died in the team hotel in a Dallas suburb. His body was found hours before what was supposed to be the start of a series between the Angels and Texas Rangers.
Miley, 38, is not facing criminal charges, and it’s not the first time his name has come up in relation to Skaggs’ death. During the sentencing phase of Kay’s case, prosecutors used a recording of a conversation between Kay and his mother in which Kay said Miley was one of Skaggs’ drug suppliers.
The Reds had no comment Thursday, and Miley wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Matt Harvey, now a retired major league pitcher, testified during Kay’s trial that he provided drugs to Skaggs. Harvey was later suspended for 60 days for violating MLB’s drug policy. He didn’t pitch in the major leagues again. Harvey and three other players also testified they received pills from Skaggs and described the recreational drug use they witnessed while with the Angels.
Harvey and Skaggs were teammates with the Angels in 2019. Skaggs and Miley were teammates with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012 and 2013.
Hamill said the conversation in which Skaggs implicated Miley took place in 2013. Hamill had expressed concern to Skaggs’ parents about what he said was erratic behavior from the pitcher in a phone conversation. Hamill said he and Skaggs’ parents confronted Skaggs at home, leading to Skaggs’ admission that he was using drugs and the accusation that Miley was supplying them.
Miley signed a one-year contract with the Reds on June 4 and has made two starts this season. He had Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in May 2024 and signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati in February.
Miley had an opt-out clause if he didn’t reach the big leagues by June 1. The 14-year veteran executed that clause but remained with Cincinnati while he pursued potential deals with other clubs before re-signing with the Reds.
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