The Most Exciting Stanley Cup Final Ever Hits New High as Oilers Bounce Back

The post-mortem columnists were hard at work.

In the intermission between a dreadful first period and what would surely be more of the same for a revved-up Florida team before an ear-splitting Amerant Bank Arena crowd, keyboards were rattling with biting prose describing how the Edmonton Oilers had blown it again.

Gave away home ice in the Stanley Cup Final with a so-so goal at the end of a marathon Game 2, then showed all the symptoms in Game 3 of a team that had cashed it in mentally.

Undisciplined penalties. Egregious possession errors. Weak goals.

And it was more of the same through the first 20 minutes of Thursday's Game 4, in which the Oilers were outhustled, outworked, outshot and, most importantly, outscored by a 3-0 count.

The end, it seemed perfectly logical to assume, given the Panthers' would-be stranglehold on the series, was near.

Until, well… it wasn't.

And the most dramatic instant classic of a Stanley Cup Final got even more so.

Instead of being forced to a season-ending brink, those very same Oilers staged the most unlikely of comebacks, ultimately stunning the home crowd with a 5-4 overtime win to even the series at two games apiece.

Leon Draisaitl, still playing like a man on an MVP mission, ended the proceedings at 11:18 of the extra session after a centering pass intended for Corey Perry bounced off Niko Mikkola and past Sergei Bobrovsky into the back of the net.

It was as sudden as it was improbable, given how the first period had gone.

Having somehow conjured a locker-room meld of Herb Brooks, Knute Rockne and Harry Houdini, Edmonton evened the game by the time 20 more minutes had been played. It then took a 4-3 lead into the 60th minute of regulation until, fittingly, another test for the visiting team's mettle.

Florida sniper Sam Reinhart, who won Game 7 last June, found the back of the net with 20 seconds remaining and left those prone to pen an Oilers obituary even more sure it would run thanks to the especially cruel swing in momentum.

Bouncing back once was respectable. Twice? Impossible.

Maybe so. But the demise, it seems, will again have to wait.

Moments after Conn Smythe favorite Sam Bennett's wrister hit Calvin Pickard's arm and the crossbar before skittering away, Edmonton got a bounce.

And when Draisaitl's seemingly harmless flick caromed off Mikkola and past Bobrovsky for the win, the narratives suggesting the Oilers still have a pulse gained traction.

Instead of returning to Alberta with fleeting dreams of survival, Edmonton can ice the franchise's first championship since 1990 and its country's first since 1993 by simply protecting home ice the rest of the way in a best-of-three scenario.

In fact, with a win at Rogers Place on Saturday, the Oilers can bring the series back to Florida with a chance to end it in front of the same crowd that left them for dead.

Yes, you read that right.

A team that was down 2-0 to Los Angeles in Round 1, gave up five goals in the third period to lose an opener at Dallas in Round 3 and was 40 minutes away from another 3-1 deficit against the defending champions is now on the verge of something memorable.

And if you're looking for heroes, they’re not hard to find.

One unsung and one underappreciated.

First, it was Pickard, who began the season as a journeyman backup and started the playoffs as a "we hope we won't need him." He replaced a shell-shocked Stuart Skinner to begin Thursday's second period, steadied the back end and allowed only one of 23 shots to get past him in 51-plus minutes.

He’s 7-0 in the playoffs after having already spelled Skinner in the first round and only gave the net back after an injury in Round 2 against Vegas. Going forward, it will take something akin to a gaping head wound to prompt coach Kris Knoblauch to get him out of the lineup again.

On the other end, it was Draisaitl, whose illogical pass-over for the Hart Trophy went public an hour before game time, easing the pain with his second OT winner of the series and an NHL-record fourth of the playoffs to cap what veteran Edmonton broadcaster Bob Stauffer called "the greatest comeback in the team's playoff history."

It's a history, by the way, that includes five championships, multiple Hall of Fame players and some pretty good coaches named Sather and Muckler, which means it takes a lot to move the "City of Champions" needle.

But given the thrill ride this Final has already provided with three OTs in four games, it's hardly hyperbolic.

And, by the way, you're forgiven if you're already salivating for Saturday.

It's going to be some kind of closing number.