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  • Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterDec 20, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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      ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

Luis Severino joined a videoconference on the Friday after Thanksgiving with an Athletics contingent that hoped to make him not only the ace of their staff, but one of the biggest, most consequential additions in franchise history. He was receptive but skeptical.

“I had a lot of questions,” Severino recalled in Spanish. “Lots and lots.”

A’s general manager David Forst sat alongside manager Mark Kotsay and a handful of other staffers while Severino probed them about the direction of a team that lost 307 games over the past three years, the dynamics of the minor league ballpark they’ll call home for the next three seasons and the intentions of a franchise that had spent decades as one of the sport’s most frugal.

A few days later, Severino, a 30-year-old right-hander who was among the more affordable standouts in a deep crop of available starters, received an initial offer that proved the A’s were serious. Within a week of that first meeting, he signed the largest contract in team history — a three-year, $67 million deal that nearly doubled their previous high for a free agent.

“Neither I nor my agent were expecting them to offer a contract of that magnitude,” said Severino, represented by Nelson Montes de Oca of Klutch Sports Group. “It was impressive.”

The A’s, dormant in free agency for most of their existence, have spent these past two months talking at contract levels they never have, even while navigating the most volatile juncture in franchise history. They have moved out of Oakland, their home for the past 56 years, and will spend the 2025, 2026 and 2027 seasons — and perhaps the 2028 season — playing in a Triple-A ballpark in West Sacramento while waiting for a new stadium to be erected in Las Vegas.

In his 26th offseason in the A’s front office, Forst is facing arguably his most difficult task: persuading accomplished major league players to play in a minor league stadium, join a team in transition and lead a group still learning to win. Overpaying is a necessity.

Forst’s pitch is built around a young core the A’s believe is talented enough to build around, shown in glimpses of the team’s .500 record in the second half, as well as a manager in Kotsay toward whom Forst thinks players gravitate. The team’s on-field product, not to mention the playing-time opportunities within it, has been received favorably by free agents, Forst said.

Their temporary stadium — Sutter Health Park, a 14,000-seat venue they will share with the San Francisco Giants‘ Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats — has been a bigger obstacle.

While meeting with prospective free agents — most notably Severino and fellow starters like Sean Manaea and Walker Buehler, the latter two still unsigned — Forst and his group have done a lot of up-front explaining to address concerns about amenities, seating capacity, weather, living arrangements and, notably, clubhouse commutes.

“I just think there’s a lot of unknowns,” Forst said in his Dallas hotel suite during last week’s winter meetings. “This is not a city that a lot of players have been to. When we were trying to bring guys to Oakland, at least it was a place that guys had been to. They’d stayed in San Francisco, they’d taken the bus over to the ballpark, they knew what the stadium looks like.”

The A’s expressed interest in Severino shortly after he declined the New York Mets’ qualifying offer on Nov. 19 and filled his agent’s inbox with PDFs leading up to their initial meeting 10 days later.

One held information about how a tweak in usage patterns could help Severino improve off a year in which he went 11-7 with a 3.91 ERA in 182 innings for a Mets team that became one of baseball’s biggest surprises this past season. The other was a slide deck with floor plans, pictures and key information about the upgrades being made to Sutter Health Park, most notably a replenished irrigation system to help natural grass withstand the rigors of two teams playing in the summer heat and a new, two-story clubhouse consisting of lockers, showers, offices, dining rooms, lounges and neighboring batting cages. That space, however, is located beyond the left-field wall, necessitating a fairly long walk outside every time players go back and forth from the field. It’s no small problem.

“That’s the biggest difference from a big league experience in most places, is that you sort of associate walking across the field to the clubhouse with the minor leaguers,” Forst said. “We’ve just been up front in saying, ‘Hey, there was nothing we could do about that. But the clubhouse itself is going to be big league.'”

On Dec. 6, Severino conducted his introductory news conference from the ballroom of a Kimpton hotel in downtown Sacramento, attached to the arena that houses the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. He then crossed neighboring Tower Bridge and toured a ballpark still under heavy construction.

“It’s a mess right now, but they say it’s going to be ready for the start of the season,” Severino said. “There’s still a lot of work to do, but they’re going to do everything they can to make their players comfortable.”

Severino wasn’t too concerned about playing in an area that regularly sees 100-degree temperatures in the summer — “I’d rather it be hot than cold,” he said — but he did ask questions about Sutter Health Park’s favorability to hitters. The A’s told Severino they believe it will play relatively neutral, at least relative to the other ballparks that reside within Triple-A’s hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

Severino also asked if the A’s intended to keep adding players to supplement their young core — a group of position players consisting of Jacob Wilson, Lawrence Butler, JJ Bleday, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom, Zack Gelof and, eventually, Nick Kurtz, the No. 4 pick in this year’s draft. He was told, rather definitively, that they would.

The Severino signing was followed by a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for another starting pitcher, Jeffrey Springs, a 32-year-old left-hander who has shown upside when healthy. On Thursday, they filled their desire for an everyday third baseman by agreeing to terms with Gio Urshela. The A’s could still add a left fielder and have been open to signing another starter for a rotation that could still use help. They’ve also been public in their desire to hold onto Mason Miller, their young star closer, and have shown interest in extending Brent Rooker, their best hitter.

In some ways, they have no choice but to spend.

The A’s are scheduled to receive 100% of their revenue-sharing pool for the first time under the current collective bargaining agreement, which stipulates that teams put 1½ times that amount toward their major league payroll. An industry source estimated the A’s will receive approximately $70 million in revenue sharing next season, confirming a report by the Athletic, which means anything short of a $105 million payroll in 2025 would open them up to a grievance from the players’ union.

It’s a sizable bump for a team that opened the 2024 season with roughly $60 million committed to players and finished it without a single financial commitment beyond then, and a gap still remains. After adding Severino and Springs, the A’s luxury-tax payroll — the one used to determine how teams allocate revenue-sharing money — is projected at $89 million, according to FanGraphs. (Terms of Urshela’s deal have not been disclosed.)

“That is something that we’re aware of,” Forst said of the CBA provision. “I can’t say that that is the reason why we’re spending. We’re trying to get better.”

The A’s finished last in payroll each of the past three seasons and have been among the industry’s least willing spenders during John Fisher’s 20-year ownership tenure. But their key decision-makers have promised to increase payroll in the lead-up to Las Vegas, a natural source of frustration for an Oakland fan base that spent years clamoring for them to make greater financial commitments.

The Severino deal, which gives him the ability to opt out after the second year, qualified as an opening statement. It’s $1 million greater than the largest contract in team history — a six-year, $66 million extension given to third baseman Eric Chavez in 2004 — and blew away its previous high in free agency, a four-year, $36 million deal for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. Before Severino, the last A’s player to receive more than $15 million and sign for more than two years was reliever Ryan Madson in December 2015.

Money was probably the biggest factor in Severino’s decision; the A’s offered more than most projected, especially considering the penalties associated with adding a player who had declined a qualifying offer.

But when Severino met with the A’s on Nov. 29, he talked about how impressed he was while watching them take two of three from his Mets in the middle of August. He told a group consisting of Forst, Kotsay, pitching coach Scott Emerson, coach and interpreter Ramón Hernández, and assistant general managers Dan Feinstein and Rob Naberhaus that it reminded him of the 2017 team headlined by Matt Olson and Matt Chapman, young stars who helped lead the A’s to three straight playoff appearances before being traded away in this latest rebuild.

At one point in the conversation, one of the A’s staff members laid out a goal that, to Severino’s camp, spoke to the group’s conviction: to create a logistical nightmare for Major League Baseball by qualifying for the playoffs in a minor league ballpark.

In lieu of comfort and security, the A’s are offering hope and opportunity.

Also, in a surprising twist, money.

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Inside the numbers: Where Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl rank as an all-time playoff duo

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June 9, 2025

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Inside the numbers: Where Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl rank as an all-time playoff duo

  • Greg WyshynskiJun 9, 2025, 07:30 AM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

EDMONTON, Alberta — Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky are the two highest-scoring players in Stanley Cup playoffs history. But Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl just passed the Edmonton Oilers‘ dynastic duo in the NHL record books for one particular achievement.

“They’re the best players of their generation,” said Messier, who is second (295 points in 236 games) to Gretzky (382 points in 208 games) in all-time postseason scoring.

Gretzky and Messier had 28 playoff games in which they both scored multiple points. Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday against the Florida Panthers was the 29th game in which McDavid (three assists) and Draisaitl (goal, assist) both had multiple points in a postseason game, passing Messier and The Great One.

They trail Gretzky and Glenn Anderson by one game for second all time in this category but will need some time to match Gretzky and linemate Jari Kurri, who had 44 multipoint games together with Edmonton and Los Angeles.

“It’s actually unbelievable for a franchise like Edmonton to have had the teams and the players that have come through there, Messier said. “There are NHL teams that have been around forever and never had a Bobby Orr or Mario Lemieux. For a team that had Gretzky to now have McDavid and Draisaitl is unbelievable.”

Of course, Messier was no slouch either. The Hockey Hall of Fame center is third in NHL history with 1,887 career points. He and Gretzky won four Stanley Cups together in Edmonton, before Messier won another with the Oilers after The Great One was traded to Los Angeles. They were the engine for those teams, with Gretzky (252 points) and Messier (215 points) as the first and second playoff scorers in Edmonton history. McDavid (148 points in 92 games) is fifth, while Draisaitl (137 in 92 games) is sixth.

McDavid and Draisaitl eclipsing an achievement by Gretzky and Messier is poetic. Both sets of stars were the first- and second-line centers on the Oilers. All of them have been NHL MVPs. The current Edmonton standard-bearers are trying to bring the first Stanley Cup to the city since the Oilers’ dynasty ended in 1990.

“They’ve been in this organization for a long time now. Two of the best players in the world. Everyone knows how much they mean to the Oilers,” said their goalie, Stuart Skinner, who grew up in Edmonton as an Oilers fan.

Draisaitl was drafted third in 2014 by Edmonton behind defenseman Aaron Ekblad and center Sam Reinhart, both of whom are now on the Panthers. McDavid was the coveted first pick in 2015 whom Edmonton drafted after winning the lottery and moving up from No. 3.

McDavid and Draisaitl led the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final last season and nearly rallied them from a 3-0 series deficit to the Panthers before losing in Game 7. McDavid finished with 42 points in 25 games. Draisaitl had 31 points in the same span.

This postseason, McDavid leads the playoffs with 31 points, while Draisaitl is second with 29 points.

Draisaitl has scored at least 10 goals in three straight postseasons, joining New York Islanders legend Mike Bossy (four from 1980 to 1993) and Gretzky (three from 1983 to 1985) as the only players to have done so.

This is McDavid’s third 30-point postseason, tying him with Messer for second-most all time behind Gretzky, who had six. Assuming Draisaitl gets to 30 points, it will also be his third 30-point postseason. Draisaitl’s next point will also set a new NHL record for him and McDavid: No other teammates in Stanley Cup playoffs history have had back-to-back 30-point postseasons.

Not even Gretzky and Messier.

“I think Oilers fans appreciate it because of the 1980s and then the long drought and now what they have with McDavid and Draisaitl,” Messier said. “There’s appreciation of their drive, work ethic, talent and determination to be the best. They’ve shown every one of those attributes.”

AT THE END of Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, as the Dallas Stars were celebrating a miraculous third-period comeback win, Draisaitl and McDavid simultaneously turned their heads to glance at each other on the Oilers bench.

This became known on social media as “The Look.”

Fans marked time as everything that happened before “The Look” and everything that followed it. Namely that the Oilers won the next four games against Dallas, outscoring the Stars 19-5, and then won Game 1 of the Final.

While the internet bestowed gravitas to this brief but smoldering gaze, McDavid said he didn’t recall the moment. But he did confirm that, over the years, he and Draisaitl have developed some kind of telepathic communication.

“I think we’ve definitely developed a sense of understanding what the other one’s thinking in any given moment,” he said. “Sometimes, yeah, all it takes is a look to know what’s going on.”

The offense created when McDavid and Draisaitl are on the ice does speak to something extra sensory between them.

Heading into Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night, McDavid and Draisaitl have now factored on the same goal 73 times in the playoffs. There are only three duos in NHL history that have factored in on the same goal more often:

In 43 games over the past two postseasons, Edmonton has scored 21 goals with McDavid and Draisaitl on the ice at 5-on-5, a rate of 4.4 goals per 60 minutes. When neither of them are on the ice, the Oilers have a 2.03 goals per 60 minutes rate at 5-on-5 in their past 43 games — although it should be noted that this season’s supporting cast has that rate up to 2.71 goals per 60 in the team’s past 18 games.

This postseason, McDavid and Draisaitl have an expected goals rate of 66.4%; when neither of them are on the ice at 5-on-5, the rest of the Oilers earn 49.6% of the expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. When Messier and Gretzky were teammates, the Oilers rarely put them on the same line.

“No, we played on separate lines for the most part. The power play, at times, but not all the time,” Messier said. “I centered the second line, and it was one of the reasons why we became so hard to play against.”

McDavid and Draisaitl have played 167:04 together at 5-on-5 in 18 games, more than McDavid (158:43) and Draisaitl (150:06) have played away from the other. Which is to say that coach Kris Knoblauch has not hesitated to unleash the “nuclear option” on opponents this postseason, uniting his two offensive wizards on the same line.

“We’ve done it throughout the playoffs, and they have just gone off and scored at a tremendous, tremendous rate,” Knoblauch said.

But the coach said he’s cognizant of the ripple effects caused by Draisaitl moving to McDavid’s wing.

“Leon playing center just spreads out our scoring a little bit. It also gets him in the game a little bit more. He’s skating and involved,” Knoblauch said. “I think it also allows the rest of our team knowing that they’ve got a role, they’ve got to play well and we’re not just relying on this one line that it’s going to do all the work.”

Of course, the Oilers are more than happy to rely on McDavid and Draisaitl as linemates on the power play. In 43 games over the past two postseasons, Edmonton has scored 34 goals with both of them on the ice for a power play. The Oilers have scored just once on the power play without McDavid and Draisaitl on the ice over the past two postseasons.

Draisaitl has 22 career power-play goals in 92 games, tying him for 29th all time. Only Hockey Hall of Fame winger Cam Neely (25 in 93 games) had more goals having played fewer than 100 career postseason games. Draisaitl enters Game 3 needing one power-play goal to tie Gretzky (23) for the most in Oilers history — and it took The Great One 120 games to amass that total.

Alex Ovechkin has the “Ovi Spot” on the power play. Leon has “Drai Island”: Draisaitl now has 73 power-play goals from the right circle on a one-timer in the regular season and the playoffs since the shot was first tracked in 2016-17. The next-highest player? Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov, way back at 44 goals.

McDavid remains Draisaitl’s biggest fan.

“You can’t put a number on it. He’s invaluable. There’s so many good things he does. You name it, he does it. And he doesn’t get enough credit for his defensive abilities,” McDavid said last week. “There’s not many — maybe nobody — better.”

Draisaitl has 10 power-play goals over the past two Oilers playoff runs. McDavid had the primary assist on seven of them. That includes his cross-ice feed to Draisaitl for the overtime winner in Game 1 and that highlight-reel individual effort to feed him for a goal in Game 2 when McDavid deked Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad out of their respective skates:

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McDavid wizardry sets up Draisaitl for Oilers goal

The Oilers take the lead for the second time after Connor McDavid’s sensational assist to Leon Draisaitl.

Those power-play helpers are one reason McDavid has moved up the ranks of the most multi-assist games in NHL postseason history. Heading into Game 3, he has 33 career multi-assist playoff games, the third-most behind Oilers legends Gretzky (72) and Messier (40).

“They’re the best at almost all aspects of the game,” Oilers winger Jeff Skinner said. “They are dominant every night, and that gives them the confidence to keep doing it.”

Which is to say that opponents, such as the Panthers, can only hope to mitigate the damage that McDavid and Draisaitl will inevitably do.

IN GAME 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, Florida iced the puck 21 times. Occasionally, it was its fourth line that was guilty of the infraction. When that would happen and the Panthers were forced to take a faceoff back in their own zone, Knoblauch wouldn’t hesitate to put McDavid and Draisaitl out there together to prey on them.

When that happened, Panthers fourth-line winger Jonah Gadjovich knew what to do — let someone else handle them as quickly as possible.

“Play hard. Get off the ice as quick as you can. Get the puck out and get off. That’s what we’re trying to do,” he said.

Defending McDavid is hard. Defending McDavid and Draisaitl is terrifying, even for Barkov, considered the best defensive forward in the NHL.

“You just have to know that they’re on the ice. You have to be aware of them all the times. You have to know a little bit of their tendencies as well,” said Barkov, a three-time winner of the Selke Trophy, including this season. “But at the same time, it’s five guys on ice. It’s not just one. So five guys need to know you need to know where they are and take the time and space away from it.”

That’s something Panthers defenseman Seth Jones echoed.

“When they play together, they’re obviously very creative players and they make everyone around them better. They like to look for each other, especially when they play together. Little give-and-goes, things like that,” he said. “Whether they’re playing together or apart, it’s a five-man unit, defending holdups, little things like that, just being physical on them is going to help us at the end of the day.”

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Draisaitl comes up big with OT winner in Game 1

Leon Draisaitl nets the winning goal late in overtime to help the Oilers take Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

But the Panthers aren’t playing the same McDavid and Draisaitl from last postseason. Both players were far from 100% in 2024, having played 13 playoff games in the last two rounds before the Stanley Cup Final. This time, they’re healthy and rested, having played 10 games in those rounds in two straight five-game series wins.

Both players have talked about how the postseason journey in 2024 changed them, in particular with their mental approach to this season’s Final. McDavid has talked about being more “comfortable” than last time, with the second time around feeling more normal.

Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who has been a linemate for both McDavid and Draisaitl in his career, praised their mental toughness.

“It speaks to their level of competitiveness, which is so impressive on a day-to-day basis that it pushes you,” he said. “They’re two of the most talented players that we’ve probably ever seen in the game, but there has to be more than that, and these guys have that. They’re so competitive. They want to win so bad.”

The numbers certainly back that up.

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Panthers-Oilers Game 3 preview: Who will take a 2-1 lead?

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June 9, 2025

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Panthers-Oilers Game 3 preview: Who will take a 2-1 lead?

After two games of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers are knotted at one game apiece — essentially turning this series into a best-of-five.

With Game 3 on the horizon Monday night (8 p.m. ET, TNT/Max), which team will inch ahead two games to one?

Here are notes on the matchup from ESPN Research, as well as betting intel from ESPN BET:

More from Game 2: Recap | Grades

Matchup notes

Edmonton Oilers at Florida Panthers
Game 3 | 8 p.m. ET | TNT/Max

With the series tied 1-1, the Panthers are now slight favorites to win the Cup according to ESPN BET; their odds are now -115, compared to -105 for the Oilers. Connor McDavid remains atop the Conn Smythe Trophy odds board at +105, followed by Sergei Bobrovsky (+350), Sam Bennett (+400) and Leon Draisaitl (+650).

The Panthers’ win in Game 2 was their ninth on the road this postseason, setting a franchise mark for road wins in a single playoff run. They are now one road win shy of tying the NHL record, which has been done six times before, most recently by the 2019 St. Louis Blues.

This is the third time the Oilers have been tied 1-1 through two games of a Stanley Cup Final. They won Game 3 and the Cup Final on both previous occasions (1984 vs. the New York Islanders, 1985 vs. the Philadelphia Flyers).

Brad Marchand‘s overtime winner in Game 2 was his fifth career OT goal in the Stanley Cup playoffs, which ties him with Edmonton’s Corey Perry, teammate Carter Verhaeghe, Patrick Kane and Glenn Anderson for third all time. Only Maurice Richard (six) and Joe Sakic (eight) have more.

Florida’s Bennett scored the opening goal in Game 2 on the power play, his 12th road goal this postseason, which sets a new NHL record.

Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made 42 saves for the second straight game, becoming the fifth goalie in NHL history to have 40 or more saves in back-to-back Stanley Cup Final games; the others are Henrik Lundqvist in 2014, Ed Belfour in 2000, Rogie Vachon in 1967 and Don Simmons in 1958.

Draisaitl scored his 22nd career power-play goal in the playoffs, moving him into a tie with Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson for the second most in Oilers history behind Wayne Gretzky (23). Draisaitl’s goal was his 10th of the postseason, making him the third player in NHL history with at least 10 goals in three consecutive postseasons — joining Mike Bossy (four from 1980 to 1983) and Gretzky (three from 1983 to 1985).

Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard scored his 20th career playoff goal in his 71st playoff game, tying Cale Makar for the fastest defenseman to 20 career playoff goals among active blueliners. Only six defensemen have scored 20 playoff goals faster: Paul Coffey (48), Brian Leetch (49), Bobby Orr (50), Denis Potvin (52), Al MacInnis (70) and Paul Reinhart (70).

McDavid assisted on Draisaitl’s and Bouchard’s goals in the first period of Game 2, giving him his 33rd career multi-assist playoff game, breaking a tie with Sidney Crosby, Doug Gilmour and Ray Bourque for the third most multi-assist playoff games in NHL history, behind Gretzky (72) and Mark Messier (40).

Scoring leaders

GP: 19 | G: 13 | A: 6

GP: 18 | G: 6 | A: 25

Best bets for Game 3

Niko Mikkola total blocked shots; over 1.5 (+145): Already having spent almost half an hour on the ice against Connor McDavid in the first two games and currently winning the all-strengths goals differential head-to-head at 3-2 against him, Mikkola and Seth Jones should continue to see a healthy dose of McDavid now that the Panthers have last change on home ice.

Eetu Luostarinen total goals; over 0.5 (+600): If anyone is due for a tally, it’s the third member of the Panthers’ third line. Per NaturalStatTrick, Luostarinen is second to Sam Reinhart in overall scoring chances and leads the team in high-danger scoring chances across the first two games.

Connor McDavid total goals; over 0.5 (+135): Speaking of being due for a goal, McDavid and Evan Bouchard have combined for 26 shots on goal across 66:19 of total ice time in the first two games of the series. Bouchard has 15 of those shots and a goal to show for it, but McDavid is primed for a tally of his own.

Panthers to win by shutout (10-1): Though McDavid feels due to score, the Panthers playing their smothering defensive game on home ice does have a shutout feel to it. Sergei Bobrovsky has a shutout in each of the previous three rounds, after all. — Sean Allen

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Oilers shrug off ‘what-ifs,’ turn page after OT loss

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June 9, 2025

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Oilers shrug off 'what-ifs,' turn page after OT loss

  • Kristen ShiltonJun 8, 2025, 03:24 PM ET

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      Kristen Shilton is a national NHL reporter for ESPN.

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Edmonton Oilers were one shot away from taking a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida.

Instead, it was one shot against them — in Friday’s Game 2 double-overtime thriller — that gave the Panthers a 5-4 win and evened the series as it shifts to the Sunshine State.

Taking the split at home was a tough pill to swallow for Edmonton. But the Oilers are determined not to dwell on what could have been.

“Right after the game, there’s frustration and the what-ifs start going through your head a little bit,” Leon Draisaitl said following the Oilers’ practice Sunday. “But the next day you move on. You have no choice. We’ve got to get ready for [Game 3] tomorrow, coming in here, looking to play our best game.”

The Cup Final has highlighted dominant stretches for both sides — making the margins for error wafer thin. Edmonton rallied to edge Florida 4-3 in Game 1 thanks to Draisaitl’s overtime marker, a dramatic start to the rematch of last year’s final that saw Florida down the Oilers in seven games. The uptick of intensity in Game 2 further cemented how tight the series projects to be from here.

Edmonton has learned from experience, carrying it over to help manage the inevitable emotions that come with vying for hockey’s holy grail.

“Especially at this point, the magnitude of the series, you just get more comfortable with [the emotions]” defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “There’s going to be highs and lows. There are two really good teams playing against each other. There’s close to zero chance there’s going to be a sweep. So, you’re going to face some challenges at some point. For us in Game 2, losing in double OT, you were coming off an emotional high [from Game 1], and then you hit an emotional low. But now we come back and just know the importance of this Game 3 and playing hard.”

Getting back on the road can help, too. Edmonton has dropped just one game in enemy territory over its past two playoff series. It’s a little different now being back in Florida — considering that’s where Edmonton lost Game 7 of the Cup Final last year — but the Oilers expect to feel at home in Sunrise.

“We’ve got a good mentality on the road — sticking together, that’s been a big one,” forward Connor Brown said. “Just the belief in our group and a belief in one another, it’s huge. It’s the name of the game here, when you get deep in the playoffs, is finding that balancing act of not getting too high or low. It was an emotional win in Game 1. Both teams have kind of felt that.”

Coach Kris Knoblauch got his team together for Sunday’s on-ice session knowing the Oilers’ biggest names — including Draisaitl and Connor McDavid — would lead by example in helping Edmonton turn the page to what’s ahead in their next crack at the Panthers.

“I’ve seen it firsthand, no matter where we are after a big win or loss, they really set the tone and a work mentality of ‘This is business,'” Knoblauch said of the team’s top skaters. “Today was a little practice day, almost a formality, but they’re getting out on the ice and there’s repetition and drills and they’re focused. Everyone knows what’s at stake right now, and it’s nothing to take lightly, [so] let’s make sure we get prepared for our next game.”

For Knoblauch, that included making a few lineup changes at practice. He mixed up the Oilers’ defense pairings, putting Nurse with Evan Bouchard, Brett Kulak beside Jake Walman and Mattias Ekholm with John Klingberg. Edmonton was also missing top-line forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, whom Knoblauch characterized as a “game-time decision” for Monday. Jeff Skinner skated in Nugent-Hopkins place with McDavid and Corey Perry.

“We’re always making adjustments and countering what the other team is doing, [and assessing] who’s playing well,” Knoblauch said. “Our lines and D-pairs might switch up a little bit, whether it’s in the first period or is later in the game, whatever it is. Our players are comfortable with any of the changes we do make just because of how much we’ve fluctuated our lines and pairings all season.”

Anything to gain an advantage. It has been a series quickly defined by high scores and little leeway. Edmonton isn’t expecting much to change in Game 3 — or beyond.

“You’re not going to face very many teams where you’re just running over them for 60 minutes,” Draisaitl said. “Both games have been very tight and gone the distance and extra [time], so you have two really good teams going at it. [We] have to stay detailed and know all those little bounces matter.”

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