Both Panthers’ goalies had a rough Game 4 as Oilers pulled out all the stops to stay alive
For the first time in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Florida Panthers have someone in net not named Sergei Bobrovsky.
Anthony Stolarz, who was stellar in the regular season as Florida’s No. 2 goalie, relieved Bobrovsky 4:59 into the second period Florida’s eventual 8-1 loss in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final after the Oilers scored five goals on 16 shots against Bobrovsky.
Bobrovsky, a finalist this year for the Vezina Trophy, had spent the entirety of the postseason in the net for Florida.
He entered Saturday with a 2.07 goals against average, .916 save percentage and a pair of shutouts through 20 playoff games.
In the first three games against Edmonton, he had a staggering .953 save percentage, stopping 82 of 86 shots faced — including a 32-save shutout in Game 1.
On Saturday, the Oilers attacked early and often and, finally, found a way to get past Bobrovsky.
Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique and Dylan Holloway scored in the first period, with Janmark’s goal coming shorthanded, to give Edmonton a 3-1 lead after the first 20 minutes.
Connor McDavid and Darnell Nurse then scored in the opening 4:59 of the second to end Bobrovsky’s night prematurely.
“He’d had enough,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “if you think you’re mounting a comeback, rarely does the goalie make a difference for you. There’s something that happens at the other end of the ice. He’s played an awful lot of hockey. My number on Bob’s probably five in general. That was the decision.”
While those five goals get charged to Bobrovsky, forward Matthew Tkachuk said that was more of an indictment of the performance of the players in front of him than it was on the goaltender himself. The Panthers’ defense, the backbone to its success all season, was loose. They gave up too much off the rush, and the Oilers capitalized.
“He’s been unbelievable all year, all playoffs,” Tkachuk said. “That was more of a wake-up call to the forwards and the D as opposed to [him]. It had nothing to do with Bob. It was more of a wake-up call to everybody. We know he’s going to come back better than ever and with that being said, none of them were his fault. I still thought he made some unreal saves. Everybody’s going to come back ready
to go Game 5 at home.”
That brought in Stolarz for the first playoff appearance of his eight-year NHL career. The 30-year-old netminder went 16-7-2 in the regular season over his 27 appearances (24 starts) while posting a 2.03 goals against average and .925 save percentage.
Stolarz, who hadn’t played in nearly two months (his most recent
start before this was April 16), was strong at the start. He stopped 15 of the first 16 shots he faced — with the lone goal allowed in that span being a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins goal off a rebound with Edmonton having a five-on-three power play — before giving up goals on back-to-back shots on net in the final six minutes of regulation.
“He was good,” Maurice
said. “The guy’s watched a lot of hockey for a while. That’s what you need. He comes in and he’s going to battle his butt off. It was great for him to get in. There are not a lot of silver linings here, people, but Bob got some rest. I’ll take that.”