Oilers remain confident, ‘not going crazy’ entering Game 4 of Cup Final

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, Matthew Tkachuk and the Florida Panthers drive teams crazy, playing on the line and goading their opponents over it. But the Edmonton Oilers aren’t worried about the insane penalties they took in a 6-1 loss in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday.

“I’m not going crazy,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said after practice Tuesday. “I don’t know if anybody’s going crazy. It’s an emotional time. It’s two teams that want to win, two teams doing it their own way, but I don’t think anybody is going crazy here. They’re good at what they do, but last night was the first night where it got out of hand a little bit.”

Edmonton took 21 penalties for 85 minutes in Game 3, including one minor for slashing, one minor for unsportsmanlike conduct, four minors for cross-checking, five minors for roughing, one major for fighting and five 10-minute misconducts.

Oilers defenseman Jake Walman received two $5,000 fines Tuesday -- one for roughing Tkachuk, another for squirting a water bottle at the Florida bench after Panthers forward A.J. Greer stole one of his gloves.

There’s no question the Panthers knocked the Oilers off their game, and Edmonton can’t let it happen again, trailing the best-of-7 series 2-1 entering Game 4 back at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“Florida does a really good job of that,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “That’s their game. They like that. We have to play our game. That’s with the puck, good defensive hockey. Some guys thrive on those extracurricular activities, things that happen after the whistle. But I think some of our guys got a little distracted with that. I think it’s most important for us to play in between the whistles.”

Oilers forward Trent Frederic thinks the Panthers have become even better at agitating their opponents in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He faced them twice before with the Boston Bruins, losing in seven games in the Eastern Conference First Round in 2023 and in six in the second last year, although Marchand was on his side in each of those series.

“They’re good at that, playing that game,” he said. “I’ve played them multiple series. Obviously, I’m biased. It feels like they’re doing it more but getting more penalties [called on their opponents], so they’re good at that.”

But Edmonton took 15 penalties for 73 minutes after Florida took a 5-1 lead early in the third period in Game 3.

In the first two games of this series -- a 4-3 overtime win for the Oilers in Game 1 and a 5-4 double-overtime win for the Panthers in Game 2 -- Edmonton took nine penalties for 18 minutes combined.

In their seven-game loss to the Panthers in the Cup Final last year, the Oilers took 31 penalties for 97 minutes.

That would suggest this was an aberration, mostly an emotional eruption related to the score, not necessarily a larger problem with the Panthers’ style.

“That’s part of their DNA,” Draisaitl said. “That’s what they do. I think there’s spurts in this series where we’ve handled it really well. Last night is, I mean … The game’s over with 11 minutes left, right? Like, whatever it is. And then all hell breaks loose. It’s a UFC fight. … It’s not a big deal. We have guys that are intense. They like getting in those situations just as much as they do, so there’s not really that much to it.”

Panthers coach Paul Maurice didn’t think there was much to it, either.

“I don’t believe any of that [bull] they unraveled,” Maurice said. “The game got to a point it probably wasn’t getting better. Let’s move on to the next one. That’s all that was, so it has actually nothing to do with us finding it, we figured them out, or any of that. The game just gets away from you.

“You’ve got an emotional well that’s kind of this big. It gets less and less as you go, because you’ve got to go to the well a whole bunch of times to get here, and then you get into a game like that and it goes away from you, it’s over, and you move on to the next one.”

Edmonton defenseman Mattias Ekholm said the Oilers have a lot of experience against the Panthers at this point, so it’s up to them to control their emotions and cut down on the penalties.

“That’s their brand,” Ekholm said. “That’s what they do really well. But at the same time, we have won four games against them in [the Cup Final] in the last two years. I think if you look at those games, we are a very focused group. We play our game. We don’t let that even creep in a little bit. Maybe we lost that a little bit last night, but we know what to do.”