EDMONTON – We thought we save everything during last year’s Stanley Cup Final.
But we never saw this.
After no game went beyond 60 minutes during last year’s cinematic seven-game series, Leon Draisaitl lit the lamp in overtime to lift the Edmonton Oilers to a 4-3 win over the defending champion Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place on Wednesday.
“It’s going to be a long series,” forward Sam Bennett said. “I don’t think we expected this to be easy. You can learn some things from tonight, and then we’re just going to move on.”
Igniting a raucous home crowd in Edmonton, Draisaitl broke the ice for the Oilers just 1:06 into the first period when he ripped a rebound past Sergei Bobrovsky to make it 1-0.
Evening the score for the Panthers, Carter Verhaeghe fir