PREVIEW: Oilers at Panthers (Game 3)

The Stanley Cup Final shifts to Sunrise as the Edmonton Oilers visit Amerant Bank Arena for Game 3 against the Florida Panthers on Monday night.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet at 6:00 p.m. MDT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 880 CHED.

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Game previews during the 2025 Oilers playoffs are presented by Pizza 73 🍕

PREVIEW: Oilers at Panthers (Game 3)

SUNRISE, FL – The dressing room. The rink. The ride to Sunrise.

It all still feels so fresh.

As the Edmonton Oilers arrive back in the Sunshine State for Games 3 & 4 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, there’s still so much that feels familiar from last year’s championship series, having come back from a 3-0 series deficit only to suffer a heartbreaking 2-1 defeat in Game 7 to the Florida Panthers.

Despite there being a sense of 'sameness' for the Oilers from coming back to the same dressing room and visitors' bench that look precisely like they did when they came one game short of history last year, there's an overarching belief they're a much improved and prepared team heading back to Amerant bank Arena on Monday night to continue the Stanley Cup Final with Game 3 against the Panthers.

“It’s a different, different feeling,” Darnell Nurse told NHL.com on Sunday. “It was very emotional for us. Obviously, a lot of memories come flying back. You get those whenever you return to a place you’ve played before in the playoffs, but losing a Game 7 here is always going to stick with you.”

"We know what their building's like," Evan Bouchard said. "We know how they like to play in their building. They get the last line change, so it's less thinking for us. Just go out there and play, and let them do all the line matching and that sort of thing. It's going to be important for us to play the way we want to play."

Despite the emotions of last year’s loss in the Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers are trying to keep their focus on what’s ahead of them, knowing this is a different year and that they're currently locked into a 1-1 series after splitting two highly competitive and emotional matches in Oil Country in Games 1 & 2.

“I think no matter how much time passes, it'll always be on your mind when you get that close,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I think everyone's focus is on this season, so no matter what happens, I don't think that changes. We're in a new stage of our season, and we're just focused on what we need to do right now.”

The Oilers lost the first two games in Florida last year and fell behind 3-0 in that series, but avoided elimination at home and won a pivotal Game 5 on the road with a 5-3 victory, setting the stage for them to blow out the Panthers in Game 6 and force the all-important deciding Game 7 that didn't go our way.

Edmonton has been applying those lessons throughout the 2025 playoffs, ensuring they stay level-headed to help them deal with the emotional swing involved in having already played two tightly contested overtime contests against the Panthers.

The Oilers will look to reset and retool after a 5-4 defeat in double overtime on Friday night, courtesy of forward Brad Marchand's breakaway winner, which followed Leon Draisaitl's power-play goal with 31 seconds left in overtime of Game 1 to secure his side a 4-3 win.

"That's kind of what the playoffs are all about, the highs and lows of it," Bouchard said. "You can't let yourself get too high, you can't let yourself get too low. Having that experience last year when we were down 3-0 in the Final, we didn't let it get to us. We stayed even keel and fought our way back, and it's going to be important for us to keep working at it moving forward."

Monday's match will be their biggest test yet, says Mattias Ekholm, who says the Oilers have endured a handful of emotional games during these playoffs.

"The true test comes tomorrow when the puck drops and we play," he said. "But we've had some emotional games and some emotional losses throughout this playoff round or this playoff run so far. So it's about us taking those lessons, just moving on and playing the next game. I think we've done a good job."

The Oilers are prepared to make a few tweaks following their 5-4 loss to the Panthers in double overtime in Game 2 on Friday, including some potential changes to their defence pairing after they featured some different combinations during Sunday's practice at Amerant Bank Arena.

Darnell Nurse was alongside Evan Bouchard on the top pair, while Mattias Ekholm and John Klingberg were grouped up on the second pairing, leaving Brett Kulak and Jake Walman to fill out the final pairing.

The Oilers had used the same combinations of Ekholm and Bouchard, Nurse and Kulak, and Walman and Klingberg since the big Swedish blueliner was able to make his 2025 playoff debut in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final against the Dallas Stars. Having the ability to flex their defence combinations thanks to the chemistry formed between each of their blueliners has led to a few different combinations from the Oilers in recent games.

"I look at my three games that I've played since I came back, and I played a lot with John in that first game. It's just the way the game goes," Ekholm said. "It seems like everybody's pretty confident playing with everybody, and we have a really good D core. Everyone's playing really well, so I don't think it matters much. It's more about focusing on what you do and your role in helping the team win. That's the ultimate goal here, so it doesn't matter really who you're playing with."

Knoblauch added: "We're always making adjustments to counter what other teams are doing and based on who's playing well. There are some conversations on what's working well with our lines, and they might switch up a little bit, whether that's after the first period or later on in the game. But fortunately, our players are comfortable with any changes that we do make because of how much we've fluctuated our pairs and lines throughout the season.

"Through Games 1 and 2, we've made some changes, and throughout the rest of the series, there'll be some more."

Ekholm and the rest of Edmonton's defence are keying in on winning 50-50 battles and dominating the net-front area, while ensuring players like Sam Bennett aren't taking liberties around or inside the crease, as he's done regularly in these playoffs to score a league-leading 13 goals.

The Panthers have a strong forecheck that the Oilers need to be cognisant of when it comes to their breakouts, needing their defencemen to come up with puck retrievals and the other three forwards doing a better job supporting them.

"We can break pucks out better," McDavid said. "It's not just the D man on that, it's forwards helping them out on, and everybody coming back and working it out together. They do have a great forecheck, there's no doubt about it, but we've got good D men that can break the puck out. We got a good system, so that's how you can combat that last one.

Coach Knoblauch mentioned that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is a game-time decision for Game 3 after being the only Oilers absence during Sunday's practice.