Oilers right back to work day after blowout loss in Cup Final

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Edmonton Oilers decided the best way to get over a bad day at the office was to head right back to it.

A day after losing 6-1 to the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena to fall behind 2-1 in the best-of-7 series, Edmonton decided to forgo a scheduled day off Tuesday.

It was better to go back to work than to let the odor of an ugly loss linger.

"You sleep like crap, then you wake up come in here, flush the legs out and get ready for the next one," Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. "You go through the playoffs and the highs and lows and the roller coaster of it and you try to stay even keel and think our group has done a pretty good job of that.

"Obviously last night wasn't the game at all that any of us wanted to have, but with that, our response has to be big here in Game 4."

Game 4 is at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

With two days between games, Edmonton had originally planned to take Tuesday off and practice Wednesday but had a change of heart because of the lopsided loss.

"Just with our schedule, we weren't 100 percent what we were going to do," Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. "After we thought about it, we felt it was better to practice than to take the day off and then have the pregame skate (Thursday), just to break it up a little bit and not be on the ice all the time."

The Oilers welcomed the practice time, which gave them an opportunity to focus on the upcoming game.

"Just flush out the legs a little bit and feel good about going into the next couple of days," Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said when asked about practice. "Obviously it was not the game we wanted to bring, it was certainly far away from our best. Just flush it out a little bit and start getting ready."

The Oilers skated for roughly 30 minutes to try and shake off one of their worst games of these playoffs.

Edmonton took four undisciplined penalties in the first period, fell behind 2-0, then 4-1 after the second before the game disintegrated with the Oilers looking to retaliate against the Panthers agitators.

The Oilers were assessed 21 penalties for a total of 85 minutes, with the majority coming in the third and the score out of hand. The Panthers were assessed 14 penalties for 55 minutes.

"You move on from last night and we play in a couple of days," Oilers forward Corey Perry said. "We had a good practice, it was upbeat, and you get ready for the next one and the next one is the biggest one and that's the way you have to look at it.

"You can't dwell on things you can't change. You can't change the outcome after the game has ended. You look at what you didn't do right or what you can improve on, however you want to say it and takes some positives out of it or whatever. You have to flush it. The next one's the biggest one and that's how we think about it. We lost the game, get ready for the next one and we move on."

The Oilers have been in this position before and have been able to flush frustrating losses.

In the opening game of the playoffs, Edmonton battled back from a three-goal, third-period deficit against the Los Angeles Kings only to concede the winning goal with 42 seconds remaining in a 6-5 loss.

The Oilers were soundly defeated by the Kings 6-2 in Game 2 and then battled back to win the next four games to take the series in six games.

Against the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round, the Oilers conceded the winning goal in Game 3 with 0.4 seconds left in the third period when Draisaitl deflected the puck into his own net in a 4-3 loss. The Oilers then won the next two games.

The 6-3 loss in Game 1 of the Western Conference Final to the Dallas Stars saw the Oilers give up a 3-1 third-period lead before winning the next four games of the series.

"I think our team is really good at reacting and answering performances like last night," Draisaitl said. "I think we've always been a good team at coming back out with a strong effort. Obviously it was not our best showing, not our best game, but we have a great chance in two days to show what our team is all about, what we worked for all year and bring our best game."

Edmonton felt Florida got it off its game Monday and wants to get back to playing the brand of hockey that led it to a second consecutive Final. The Oilers are looking to avenge the seven-game loss to the Panthers in the Final last season.

"I think today purely was more a mental thing," defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. "You've got to go day by day and just make sure you don't let that flow into each other too much.

"We obviously didn't feel great waking up, but getting together again, getting on the ice, we all feel a lot better about it, and, yeah, we're going to be ready for Game 4."