Russian defenseman’s save makes history. Florida wins 2024 Stanley Cup!

Florida won the main game of the season and is now deservedly celebrating its championship!

Although the psychological advantage was clearly on Edmonton’s side before Game 7. The Oilers had already done the unthinkable by winning three games in a row. If they had lost the series decider in Sunrise, no one would have blamed the Canadian club. The Oilers were already heroes who were aiming to achieve Toronto’s achievement of winning the 1942 final after a 0-3 series deficit.

Florida, on the other hand, was another matter. A loss would have made Paul Maurice’s team the league’s biggest losers. But the Panthers players didn’t seem to feel the pressure.

“This is probably the most important NHL game in many years, and that’s why our fans are so excited about it. We can’t wait,” Tkachuk said before the meeting.

And Florida got what it wanted. And the key moment was when Sergei Bobrovsky and Dmitry Kulikov made two saves in a row.

Florida’s first-ever win

Florida desperately needed to relieve the pressure by opening the scoring. And from the opening faceoff, the Panthers ran forward to achieve this goal. The hosts’ activity led to Edmonton being sent off in the third minute. But the special team of Maurice’s team couldn’t even scare Stuart Skinner – zero shots on target in two minutes.

However, just six seconds after the fifth visiting player entered the ice, Florida managed to score. Evan Rodriguez threw a neat shot from the blue line to the net, and Carter Verhaeghe effectively sent the puck into the net – 1:0. For the first time in four games, the Panthers were able to score first.

Just as the fans at Emerald Bank Arena were celebrating the goal, Edmonton tied the game in the seventh minute. Defenseman Cody Ceci opened up the entire defense with a single pass from his zone under the far blue line to Mattias Janmark, who found himself one-on-one with Bobrovsky and beat the Russian goalie to make it 1-1.

Janmark’s goal changed the game dramatically. Edmonton felt so confident that it circled around the Florida players’ zone for almost a minute. During this time, the Oilers made three shots on goal, but Bobrovsky played reliably and saved the Panthers. In the 14th minute, the Panthers were saved by the goal frame, when Evan Bouchard made a powerful shot from a killer position. The loud clang of the goalpost throughout the Emerald Bank Arena calmed the home fans.

Sergey Bobrovsky / Photo: © Icon Sportswire / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Towards the end of the period, Florida managed to regain the initiative and move the puck into the opponent’s zone, but the teams went into the break with the score 1:1. While the players were resting, the NHL website provided disappointing statistics for Bobrovsky and the Panthers – from the third to the seventh game, Edmonton converted all five one-on-one opportunities with the goalie. In the first two games, Sergei managed to stop the opponent all four times in such a situation.

The second period began with a stupid penalty for Matthew Tkachuk. The forward lost his balance, fell to the ice, skated a few meters and knocked down Warren Voegele like a bowling pin. It’s hard to imagine how Tkachuk would have felt if the Oilers had capitalized on the power play, but the Panthers forward was lucky enough to sit in the penalty box for the entire two minutes.

And in the 36th minute, a key episode occurred: Foegele threw it into Bobrovsky’s pads, and Dylan Holloway prepared to play the rebounded puck. The Canadian had already seen the red light flashing behind the goal, but defenseman Dmitry Kulikov knocked the puck aside at the last moment while falling. Kulikov did it so successfully that he started a dangerous counterattack, which Sam Reinhart finished off effectively – 2:1!

During the break, North American journalists shared another interesting statistic: teams leading at the end of two periods of Game 7 of the finals have won 13 times out of 14. The only team that lost was the Detroit Red Wings in 1942. But Edmonton, having found itself in Sunrise that day, had already proven that it was capable of making history.

Samuel Bennett had a great opportunity to extend the lead early in the third period when the puck bounced in his favor in the crease. Bennett fired a shot from point-blank range, but it hit the Edmonton Oilers logo on Skinner’s jersey. The Oilers tried to save the game for the remainder of the period, but Florida held on.

The Panthers became the first-ever Stanley Cup winners! The first Finnish captain to lift the trophy, Aleksander Barkov, skated with the Cup and handed it to Bobrovsky, without whom it is hard to imagine Florida’s success. Sergei and Kulikov have not yet celebrated the championship, but Vladimir Tarasenko is now a two-time winner. The winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy was also announced. It was Connor McDavid, which caused a dissatisfied reaction from the local crowd, who wanted to see the individual award in the hands of Bobrovsky. But Sergei, who became the first star of the most important game of the season, was hardly upset.