The Edmonton Oilers skated away with a 5-3 victory in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, sending the series back to Edmonton for Game 6 on Friday and a chance at a potential Game 7 back in Florida next week.
The Panthers came back from a 3-0 deficit to bring the game to 4-3, but despite repeated pushes to tie the game, the Oilers would hold on.
The biggest play of the game was not a goal, a hit or a fight, but actually a potential game-saving play made by Matthew Tkachuk in the final 21 seconds, where the 2nd generation NHLer chased a puck down that was headed towards an empty Florida net, dove, sprawled out and actually pulled the puck right off the goal line with his outstretched stick.
The effort by Tkachuk's teammate, Oliver Ekman-Larsson is also being called into question, as the veteran blueliner appeared to quit on the play, which led to Connor McDavid's eventual empty-netter. If you watch the clip again, you can see OEL coast into his own zone and stop skating with McDavid still on the attack.
Certainly, this one is an embarrassing moment for Ekman-Larsson and the Panthers. With the Stanley Cup in the building, there is simply no excuse for that poor effort in what was, at the time, a 1-goal game in the dying seconds.
