The best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final has now become a best-of-three.
It’s been an incredibly exciting and close championship series to this point, with both the Panthers and Oilers earning a win on home ice and a win on the road to this point.
Now the series scene shifts back to Edmonton, as the Cats and Oilers will be fighting to be the first team with a chance to win the Stanley Cup when they return to South Florida after the weekend.
To this point, the Final has been extremely evenly matched and incredibly competitive through the first four games.
It’s been a bit of a throwback series, as there have an eye-popping 32 goals scored through the first four games, yet all but one of the four Final games have been decided in regulation.
One change we can probably expect to see with the Oilers is the re-insertion of Calvin Pickard as the starting goaltender.
Pickard replaced Stuart Skinner for the second straight outing on Thursday night for Game 4, entering a game Edmonton was trailing 3-0 only to turn aside all but one shot as the Oilers came all the way back and won 5-4 in overtime.
Pickard now holds a stellar 7-0 record during the postseason, though his corresponding statistics – a 2.69 goals against average and .896 save percentage – aren’t nearly as impressive.
As for Florida, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice spoke to the media prior to the team taking off for Edmonton on Friday.
When asked about potential roster changes, Maurice said he wasn’t anticipating making any.
He said the Panthers are healthy, which is about as good a compliment you could pay at team at this stage of the season.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 5 in Edmonton:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Evan Rodrigues – 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 6, 2025; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Edmonton Oilers defenseman Jake Walman (96) checks Florida Panthers left wing Matthew Tkachuk (19) during the second period in game two of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place. (Perry Nelson-Imagn Images)
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