The opening game of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final was a fun and exciting affair that saw the hometown Edmonton Oilers pick up a comeback victory over the Florida Panthers.
Florida held a brief, two-goal lead early in the second period before allowing the Oilers to score once in the second, once in the third and then again in overtime to pick up the Game 1 victory and take an early lead in the best-of-seven series.
Now the Cats will look to achieve what they set out to do before the series began, and that’s head back to South Florida with a series split.
While they didn’t play their best game in Edmonton, Florida can still take solace in that they were leading for a decent amount of Game 1 and was one shot away from earning the opening victory for themselves.
The Panthers will certainly be looking for ways to sustain more offensive pressure and get more pucks on net.
They may have finished with 32 shots on goal during Game 1, but only eight of them came during the third period and overtime.
Once Florida began playing with a lead during the second period, their offense became much less consistent.
How they respond will be key.
In terms of the Panthers lineup, forward A.J. Greer remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
On a positive note for Florida, Greer skated on Thursday and remains a possibility to rejoin the lineup in Game 2.
We’ll have to wait and see if Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice has any updates on Greer’s status following Florida’s morning skate on Friday at Rogers Place.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 2 in Edmonton:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt – Dmitry Kulikov
Scratches: Mackie Samoskevich, Uvis Balinskis, Jesper Boqvist, Nico Sturm, Jaycob Megna
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Photo caption: Jun 4, 2025; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Edmonton Oilers right wing Corey Perry (90) blocks Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) in the third period in game one of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place. (Perry Nelson-Imagn Images)
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