It Took Less Than 10 Minutes For Game 7 Of The Stanley Cup Final To Live Up To The Hype
Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. That on its own is enough to get every drop of blood in your body going. Combine that with the fact that this is the first time in 80 years that a team has come back from being down 3-0 in the series to force a game 7 in the Final? Well this is one of the biggest games in the history of the NHL. And the roof was about to blow off of Amerant Bank Arena before the first puck drop courtesy of the 20,000 fans from Edmonton who travelled down to Florida to takeover this game.
The stage was set. The barn was rocking. All that was left to do was for the boys to get out there and play the biggest 60+ minutes of their lives. And just 5 minutes into the game, Carter Verhaeghe got the party started with this tasty little tip in front of the net right after the Panthers' first powerplay of the night ended.
Sidenote: I'm a firm believer that goals like this should count as powerplay goals. Edmonton is still getting set up playing 5v5 again after the penalty is over, Florida is still sustaining pressure they had from the powerplay, Bouchard leaves Verhaeghe all alone in front of the net and the Panthers have a 1-0 lead.
Regardless, that was a massive deflection to get the Panthers on the board first after they've been reeling these past 3 games. They needed a shred of momentum to go their way. But just as the 6 or 7 Panthers fans in the building felt comfortable enough to sit back in their seats...
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Cody Ceci whipped up the best batch of sauce of his life on this feed to spring Mattias Janmark on a breakaway. It would have been a great time for Bobrovsky to steal one and give the Panthers some confidence that they have their guy back, but Janmark buries the shit out of that one over the shoulder and we have a tie game just over 2 minutes later.
Both teams started to settle in after both of those goals, but if we keep getting some punch then immediate counter-punch action like this tonight? We're in store for an all timer. What a game. What a night. What a sport.