Connor McDavid dragged his team back into the Stanley Cup fight.
Edmonton’s supporting cast grabbed the reins from their superstar captain Friday.
Now the Oilers are one win from history. And the Panthers sit one loss from infamy.
Zach Hyman scored his playoff-leading 16th goal and Stuart Skinner made 20 saves as Edmonton defeated visiting Florida 5-1 on Friday to force Game 7.
“The league’s too good,” Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl said. “You need depth, you need other guys to step up. We’ve had that throughout the run.”
Warren Foegele, with a goal and an assist, and Adam Henrique provided the rest of the offence before Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse added empty netters for Edmonton, which has stormed back with three consecutive victories to tie the title series after going down 3-0.
WATCH l Henrique scores winner as Oilers take Game 6:
Adam Henrique’s second period goal proved to be the winner as Edmonton defeated Florida 5-1 Friday in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final.
Used to seeing his name in bright lights, Draisaitl had just two assists in the series entering Game 6 before setting up Foegele’s opener as one of 11 players — none of them named McDavid — to find the scoresheet.
“It’s been a hell of a story so far,” said the German, who was critical of himself Friday morning. “Really proud to give ourselves a chance.”
Aleksander Barkov replied for the Panthers — a group that will head home searching for answers with their stranglehold on hockey’s holy grail having evaporated. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 16 shots.
“We have good moments in the games,” said Barkov, whose team will host the winner-take-all finale Monday in Sunrise, Fla. “We gotta take those to the next game.”
Edmonton is looking to become only the fifth team in NHL history to win a best-of-seven showdown after trailing 3-0 — and just the second in the Cup final, joining the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.
“The job is not done,” Hyman said. “Everybody will forget if we don’t finish it.”
A win by the Oilers in the final game of the 2023-24 season would also mark the end to Canada’s 30-year Cup drought dating back to the 1993 Montreal Canadiens’ victory over Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings.
“We’ve been a pretty loose group,” Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “It’s nice to be around this team … they’re having the time of their lives.”
The orange-and-blue party around Rogers Place started in the hours before the 6 p.m. local time…
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