Edmonton Oilers make biggest road Stanley Cup Final comeback in 106 years to tie series

By Jacob Lev, CNN

(CNN) — And just like that, we have a series.

The Edmonton Oilers completed a comeback for the ages to down the Florida Panthers 5-4 in overtime to knot the Stanley Cup Final up at 2-2.

After erasing a three-goal deficit, the Oilers found themselves leading 4-3 in the closing seconds of the third period when Florida’s Sam Reinhart found the back of the net to tie it up with 19.5 seconds remaining for the defending Cup champion Panthers.

However, it was a familiar face who took matters into his own hands in the overtime period.

Leon Draisaitl, who was the OT hero in Game 1, played the role again, scoring just over 11 minutes into the extra period to send the Oilers back to Canada feeling some excitement.

The 29-year-old German has had a knack for scoring in overtime especially in these playoffs with Game 4’s goal being his fourth – the most OT goals in a single postseason in NHL history.

As a result of the win, Edmonton became the first team in 106 years to comeback from a three-goal deficit and win on the road in the Stanley Cup Final series. The last time the feat happened was in 1919 when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Seattle Metropolitans. It is also only the sixth time in NHL history that a team has come back from a three-goal deficit to win a Stanley Cup Final game.

As Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce looked on at Amerant Bank Arena, the path to a victory for Edmonton did not appear to be reachable.

Thursday’s game appeared to be a repeat of the beatdown the Panthers put on the Oilers in Game 3 early on.

Florida quickly jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two power play goals from Matthew Tkachuk and an Anton Lundell goal 41 seconds before the first intermission.

Edmonton replaced goaltender Stuart Skinner with backup Calvin Pickard to start the second period, rejuvenating the struggling Oilers squad.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and Vasily Podkolzin all scored for Edmonton to knot things up at 3-3 after two periods as the home crowd was left stunned.

Oilers defenseman Jake Walman gave Edmonton a 4-3 lead with 6:24 left, but just as Panthers fans started to head for the exits, Reinhart injected life into the south Florida crowd, though it was not to be in the end.

Draisaitl commended his teammates for their no-quit attitude despite the holes the team digs for itself sometimes.

“We’d like to put ourselves into better situations for ourselves so we don’t have to constantly fight back and hang in there and scratch and claw our way back,” Draisaitl told the TNT Sports broadcast. “But it is a great characteristic of our team. We continue to chip away at it. And today, obviously, not a great start but then we started playing.”

Draisaitl downplayed the overtime goal record, saying that it was “good” but the team “had a lot more work ahead.”

“I’ll take it but (there’s a) bigger picture,” Draisaitl added.

The series will shift back to Western Canada at the Rogers Place in Edmonton for Game 5 on Saturday.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.