Oilers on the verge of historic success. Edmonton evens final score from 0-3 to 3-3, furious Florida coach calls up CIA

Even without a single point contribution from Connor McDavid, they did it. The Oilers dominated Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final series, beating Florida 5-1 to even the series at 3-3! Edmonton forced a seventh game to decide the winner of this year’s Stanley Cup Final.

Edmonton entered the sixth game of the final series with the better record. Warren Foegele put the Oilers ahead after seven minutes and 27 seconds. The first period then saw no more goals, so Kris Knoblauch’s charges went to the booths with a one-goal lead.

And Edmonton had a better start to the second period as well, as Adam Henrique scored after just 46 seconds, assisted by Leon Draisaitl and Brett Kulak.

The game was tied 2-0 when Florida captain Aleksander Barkov scored. But the Edmonton coaches took a coaching challenge and the referees couldn’t award the goal for offside.

By the end of the middle period, the Oilers had pulled within three goals. Elite goal scorer Zach Hyman made it 3-0 at 38:20. The Panthers did manage to cut it to 1:3 early in the third period when Aleksander Barkov scored.

But that was all Florida hockey could muster. The Canadian team added two insurance goals in the final minutes of the game. Specifically, it was Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse. Goaltender Stuart Skinner also had an assist on the last goal.

Edmonton won 5:1, how does the Florida coach see it?

“The linesman informed me that they made the decision based on the last shot they had, which confirmed the offside. Honestly, I didn’t have that,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of the disallowed goal.

“I was pretty upset because I personally made my decision based on what I could see on the video, what my guy could see. If we were in that situation, I wouldn’t have taken the challenge. I guess we’ll look at it frame by frame, call in the CIA and chop it up,” he concluded.

With the Secret Service no longer making any decisions, the 7th final will be on the schedule Tuesday at 02:00 CET and it will be a battle for everything. And McDavid and Co. can become the 5th team in NHL history to turn a series from 0-3 to 4-3.

They would also be only the second team in NHL history to turn a Finals series from 0-3 to 4-3. Only the Toronto Maple Leafs have done that so far – they went from 0:3 to 4:3 against the Detroit Red Wings in 1941-42.

Source: NHL, X