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SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers captured their first Stanley Cup in franchise history with a 2-1 Game 7 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday night in a thrilling conclusion to a classic playoff series.

Winger Sam Reinhart‘s second-period goal proved to be the winner, as goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves to close out the series — and help his team avoid postseason infamy.

The Panthers’ win averted one of the most epic collapses in sports history. Florida had built a 3-0 series lead, but the Oilers roared back with three straight wins, just the third time in NHL history that a team forced a Game 7 after losing the first three games of a Stanley Cup Final.

But the legacy of the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs remains intact; they’re still the only team to rally from a 3-0 deficit in the Final to win the Cup, after the Oilers came up short.

Instead, Florida became just the third team in the past 40 years to win the Stanley Cup after losing in the Final during the previous postseason, as the Panthers fell in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023.

Florida captain Aleksander Barkov was awarded the Cup by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and after his skate with it, Barkov handed if off to Bobrovsky.

“He deserves it. He’s been here for a long time and has been our best player for a long time,” Barkov said of Bobrovsky. “He played incredible.”

Florida coach Paul Maurice — who joined the franchise two seasons ago after stepping down as coach of the Winnipeg Jets and had been to the Final twice in two years — won for the first time in a lengthy career.

“I’ve been chasing that for a long time,” Maurice said after handing off the Stanley Cup to his coaching staff. “It’s got nothing to do with the coach; this group has been special since day one.”

The Oilers were making their first Stanley Cup Final appearance since 2006.

This was the furthest Edmonton superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl had carried their team in the postseason. Neither player had a point in Game 7, with McDavid going scoreless in the last two games of the series. He finished as the playoffs’ leading scorer with 42 points. Despite the loss, McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player.

The energy in the building for Game 7 could be felt well before puck drop. A significant number of Oilers fans purchased tickets for the game, cheering Edmonton players during warmups and loudly singing “O Canada” over guest anthem singer Alanis Morissette. Panthers fans belted their own lively rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in response.

The Panthers opened the scoring moments after an early power play ended, following a high-sticking call on Edmonton’s Warren Foegele. Florida winger Evan Rodrigues flung the puck toward the Edmonton net where he found Carter Verhaeghe alone in front, tipping it home for his 11th goal of the playoffs at 4:27 to send the home crowd into a frenzy.

“They say it’s the hardest trophy to win in sports, and you can’t imagine how hard it is, until you do it,” Rodrigues said. “Getting to Game 7, it took pressure off of us, and we did it the hard way. But it was a perfect outcome.”

Teams that scored first in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final owned an all-time record of 12-5, including eight straight wins dating back to 1994.

But Mattias Janmark gave the Oilers fans in Sunrise a reason to cheer just 2:17 later, taking a rink-length outlet pass from defenseman Cody Ceci and converting a breakaway goal for his fourth of the playoffs to knot the score at 1-1.

The Panthers took the lead in the second period in a “hockey is a game of inches” sequence.

Foegele shot the puck with a crowd in front of Bobrovsky. It deflected over the goaltender’s arm and fell to the ice next to him, where defenseman Dmitry Kulikov cleared it to the corner while falling down.

Kulikov’s play ended up as the secondary assist on Reinhart’s go-ahead goal at 15:11, a wrist shot through a screen that beat goalie Stuart Skinner. It was Reinhart’s 10th goal of the playoffs and first since Game 3.

Florida took a lead into the third period for the 10th time, having gone 9-0 in that situation during the postseason. Over the past two postseasons, they were 18-0 when leading after two.

In Stanley Cup Final history, teams were 13-1 when leading after two periods in a Game 7. The lone team to rally? Those 1942 Maple Leafs, who won the Cup after trailing the Detroit Red Wings 1-0.

The Oilers pushed in the third period but couldn’t find the equalizer, despite some chaotic moments in front of Bobrovsky.

Plastic rats, gloves and sticks littered the ice as the Panthers celebrated.

“It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it, everything was worth it,” Bobrovsky said. “It was all for this moment that I want to enjoy.”

McDavid said it was “Cup or bust” after last season. It took until the last possible game of the season for his championship push to end and his nation’s Stanley Cup drought to continue. No Canadian team has won the Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.

“We lost to a very deserving team,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said.

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Ex-LSU WR Lacy turns himself in, released on bail

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Ex-LSU WR Lacy turns himself in, released on bail

Former LSU wide receiver Kyren Lacy, accused of causing a crash that killed a 78-year-old man on Dec. 17 and then fleeing the scene without rendering aid or calling authorities, turned himself in to authorities Sunday night, was jailed and then released on $151,000 bail, according to police records.

Lafourche (Louisiana) Parish Sheriff’s Office records indicate that Lacy was charged with negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run with death and reckless operation of a vehicle.

A warrant had been issued for Lacy’s arrest, and police on Friday said they had been in contact with Lacy and his attorney to turn himself in.

According to a news release from Louisiana State Police on Friday, Lacy was allegedly driving a 2023 Dodge Charger on Louisiana Highway 20 and “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated no-passing zone.”

“As Lacy was illegally passing the other vehicles, the driver of a northbound pickup truck abruptly braked and swerved to the right to avoid a head-on collision with the approaching Dodge,” a Louisiana State Police news release said.

“Traveling behind the pickup was a 2017 Kia Cadenza whose driver swerved left to avoid the oncoming Dodge Charger. As the Kia Cadenza took evasive action to avoid impact with the Dodge, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Kia Sorento.”

Police alleged that Lacy, 24, drove around the crash scene and fled “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash.”

Herman Hall, of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was a passenger in the Kia Sorento, later died from injuries suffered in the crash, according to state police. Hall was 78.

The drivers of the Cadenza and Sorento also sustained moderate injuries, according to police.

Lacy’s agent, Rocky Arceneaux, said in a statement that his client is “fully cooperating with the authorities.”

Lacy played two seasons at Louisiana before transferring to LSU in 2022. This past season, he had 58 catches for 866 yards with nine touchdowns and declared for the NFL draft on Dec. 19, two days after the crash.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach contributed to this report.

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Texas’ Banks, top-rated tackle, declares for draft

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Texas' Banks, top-rated tackle, declares for draft

TexasKelvin Banks Jr., a junior left tackle who is one of the most decorated linemen in Longhorns history, having won the Outland Trophy and the Lombardi Award this season, declared for the NFL draft Sunday.

Banks, a 6-foot-4, 320-pound All-American, is Mel Kiper Jr.’s top-rated tackle in this year’s draft and is projected as the No. 10 pick on Kiper’s most recent Big Board.

Banks was the No. 33 recruit in the 2022 ESPN 300 and originally committed to Oregon, but the Houston native signed with Texas, where he started 42 games. He was the anchor of a much-improved offensive line after Steve Sarkisian set out in search of “big humans” with the Longhorns making the transition to the SEC. He helped pave the way for the Longhorns to win the Big 12 last season, their first conference title since 2009, and play in two College Football Playoff semifinals in the past two seasons.

“I am eternally grateful for the impact The University of Texas and Longhorn Nation have had on my life,” Banks posted on Instagram. “From the moment I stepped on the Forty Acres, I knew I was part of something special. The support, passion, and pride of this community have shaped me both as an athlete and as a person, and will carry these memories with me forever.”

Senior Hayden Conner, a 6-5, 320-pound guard who started 43 games for Texas and had a year of eligibility remaining, also declared for the draft Sunday, along with junior running back Jaydon Blue. Blue ran for 730 yards and eight touchdowns this season and caught 42 passes for 368 yards and six more TDs.

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Day: Buckeyes must erase ‘self-inflicted wounds’

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Day: Buckeyes must erase 'self-inflicted wounds'

Ohio State coach Ryan Day lamented all the self-inflicted mistakes the Buckeyes made on offense in their 28-14 victory against Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinals, saying Sunday that his team has to play better in the national championship game against Notre Dame on Jan. 20.

Day said the Buckeyes’ offense allowed five drives to get away from them with penalties and a turnover in Friday’s semifinal.

Two of those were 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, including one on running back TreVeyon Henderson that ended up forcing the Buckeyes to punt on their second drive of the game.

“There’s nobody that came back on offense and was pleased with the fact that we had those penalties,” Day said during a Zoom news conference Sunday. “The issues are there. We certainly have the right and opportunity to persevere through those penalties, but certainly sets us way behind the sticks, and we cannot have that in this game. Efficiency is going to be something that we’ve got to do a much better job of if we’re going to win it.”

Day said Henderson felt bad about his penalty, which came after he made helmet-to-helmet contact with a Texas defender.

“He knows that he’s got to play with emotion,” Day said of Henderson. “He can’t let emotion play with him.”

Day was also asked about star freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who was held to one catch for 3 yards against Texas — his lowest output of the season. It came as a surprise considering how much Smith dominated the first two playoff games with 13 combined catches for 290 yards against Tennessee and Oregon. Day said Texas did not play Smith any differently and again pointed to the missed opportunities on offense.

“It’s a little bit more about execution than it is anything else,” Day said. “We weren’t able to sustain a few of those drives and connect on a couple other plays. [Smith is] obviously a huge part of our offense, so there’s different ways that teams will adjust based on what he’s done and what he’s capable of. We’ll identify what those are in this game and then go from there.

“But to me, the story of this past game was the self-inflicted wounds that set us back and allowed us to be in the game in the fourth quarter, when we could have done a better job executing and made it a little bit of a bigger spread down the stretch. That’s going to be the focus this week. We’ve got to play our best game against Notre Dame.”

Day said starting cornerback Denzel Burke, who sat out the second half against Texas with an upper extremity injury, will be ready to play against the Irish.

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