from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,
You can slice Game 1 of this Stanley Cup Final however you’d like.
Zach Hyman has to keep his feet moving through the neutral zone on the Florida Panthers’ first goal. Darnell Nurse can’t let that pass get through his legs on the 2-0 goal.
Stuart Skinner needs to find a way to stop either of those Grade A’s, or to make a third of the miraculous saves that the guy at the other end, Sergei Bobrovsky, did.
But when you have the arsenal that the Edmonton Oilers have, and you lose 3-0 in a game where you absolutely cave the Florida Panthers in for the lion’s share of the 60 minutes, the credit lies with Bobrovsky.
And the fault lies with all those Oilers who couldn’t find a way to solve him.
Or, perhaps, with that old leveler, the Hockey Gods.
“Maybe it was the Hockey Gods getting us back for that Game 6 (versus Dallas), where we probably didn’t deserve to win,” mused Connor McDavid after his first career Stanley Cup Final game ended with six shots on goal and a big, fat minus-2. “Tonight maybe we deserved at least one goal, maybe two, and we don’t find a way to get them.”
