SUNRISE, Fla. — Connor McDavid had two goals and two assists to cap a historic postseason, Evan Bouchard added three assists and the Edmonton Oilers avoided elimination again by beating the Florida Panthers 5-3 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday night.
The Oilers, with goals from Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and Corey Perry also, took control of the game with the first three goals before hanging on late to cut Florida’s lead in the title series to 3-2.
Stuart Skinner stopped 30 shots for the Oilers, and McDavid sealed the victory with an empty-net shot in the final seconds of the game.
Evan Rodriguez and Matthew Tkachuk each had a goal and an assist for Florida, while Oliver Ekman-Larsson also scored for the Panthers.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 19 shots for Florida, whose chances of winning its first Stanley Cup in 30 years remain at least three more days.
Game 6 will be Friday night in Edmonton.
Those four points gave McDavid 42 points in the playoffs, the fourth-most in a single postseason in NHL history.
The only players above him are the ones everyone would expect: Wayne Gretzky with 47 points in 1985, Mario Lemieux with 44 points in 1991 and Gretzky with 43 points in 1988.
McDavid will look to add at least one game, and preferably two, to that total. If there is a Game 7, it will be played on Monday night in Sunrise.
It was the first time in franchise history that the Panthers played a home game with a chance to win the Cup.
A sold-out crowd again, some of whom paid more than $1,000 a pop for tickets on the secondary market, pushed Florida’s attendance this season to over one million for the first time.
They came to see the trophy.
The Oilers wouldn’t allow that.
Edmonton entered the night having scored 10 of the final 11 goals in the series, trailing 2-0 in the third period in Game 3 before dominating with an 8-1 victory in Game 4.
And the Oilers picked up where they left off, putting on a perfect example of special teams hockey.
Game 5 started similarly to Game 4, with Edmonton scoring a shorthanded goal.
Brown had an assist on Saturday night but scored an unassisted goal in this one that gave the Oilers the win. Florida was penalized for interference by Niko Mikkola late in the first period, which proved costly.
Hyman made it 2-0 with two seconds left on a power play to start the second period, and McDavid extended Edmonton’s lead to 3-0 three minutes later with an easy goal from an incredibly difficult angle.
A three-point lead has been a sure thing in the Stanley Cup Finals for nearly two decades, and no team has lost after leading by three in a title series game since Edmonton vs. Carolina in 2006.
Since then, every team is 39-0 in such games.
40-0, but the Panthers made it an entertaining game.
The score was 4-2 after the second half, with goals from Tkachuk and Rodriguez sandwiching Perry’s first playoff point on a great pass from McDavid.
Ekman-Larsson scored early in the third quarter, but the tying basket never came, and Skinner came through time and again to force the series into a Game 6.
