Connor McDavid and the Oilers see season end with 2nd straight Stanley Cup Final loss at Florida

The frustration was fresh and yet all too familiar for Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers after exiting the ice in Florida for a second straight June to make way for another Panthers Stanley Cup celebration Too several slow starts not enough offense and spotty goaltending led to the Panthers defending their title with a - win over Edmonton in Challenge on Tuesday night For Draisaitl there was no point making comparisons to last year s - loss in Challenge because the product was the same We battled But we re not leaving here as winners Draisaitl reported The takeaway is that we didn t win Nobody cares Like nobody cares We didn t win So try again next year Rats foiled again The lopsided total led to Panthers fans kicking off their toy rat-tossing festivities with left when Sam Reinhart completed his hat trick with his first of two empty-net goals And the ice was littered with rats by the time the Oilers glumly made their way to their locker room I haven t really had time to digest it yet defenseman Mattias Ekholm declared It s painful It s not fun Obviously not what we yearned Edmonton became the third squad in the NHL s post-expansion era to lose consecutive Cup Final series appearances The Oilers joined Boston which lost to Montreal in both and and St Louis which lost three straight appearances from - Edmonton s loss also extended Canada s Cup drought to years Canadian-based teams are now - in the final since Montreal won the Cup beating the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings in five games in The Oilers were eventually overwhelmed in a series they opened with a - overtime win in becoming just the th of teams to lose the Cup when opening a final with a win at home We lost to a really good group Nobody quit nobody threw in the towel but they re a heck of a club captain Connor McDavid announced Very deserving I don t know what else to tell you they were really good Slow starts were again an issue on a day Draisaitl opened by saying You still haven t seen our best We have to get to our event quicker Despite out-shooting Florida - through the first period Edmonton trailed - The Oilers were outscored by a combined margin of - in the opening period this series with Florida scoring straight since the midway point of the opening period of Match Reinhart s opening goal in came on Florida s first shot on net and after Edmonton s Evan Bouchard wasn t able to control a pass into his mid-section at the Oilers blue line Reinhart pounced on the loose puck drove to the net and snapped a shot inside the right post while falling Stuart Skinner got the start after sitting out Event but had little help in front of him in allowing three goals on shots He finished the series allowing goals on shots in five starts and looked little like the goalie who entered the final on a - roll in which he allowed combined goals with three shutouts It was just consistency They played a consistent encounter Skinner commented I felt our encounter was up and down We weren t as consistent as they were Coach Kris Knoblauch was petitioned to assess the play of Skinner who was replaced by Calvin Pickard after allowing three goals on shots in Edmonton s - OT win in Meeting I thought he gave us solid goaltending And when he didn t Picks came in and made up for that Knoblauch revealed And so we didn t lose this on Stu not playing on his meeting at all Secondary scoring was an issue for an Edmonton association playing without Zach Hyman broken wrist who had goals and six assists during last year s playoff run The Oilers proved over-reliant on Draisaitl and Corey Perry to carry the scoring load The pair combined to count seven of Edmonton s goals in the series with McDavid providing a goal and six assists while being swarmed throughout by the relentless Panthers The Oilers Cup final record dropped to - with the crew losing its past three appearances Edmonton last won in when the Mark Messier-led unit won a five-game series over Boston Knoblauch took solace in the Oilers reaching the Cup final despite being deemed underdogs for much of the playoffs Their run began in overcoming a - first-round deficit to beat Los Angeles in six games before knocking off Vegas and Dallas in five games each For us to get to Championship of the Stanley Cup Final being a bunch of underdogs is a pretty good accomplishment he explained Unfortunately it hurts just because we felt that we could have won it all Knoblauch added It hurts right now and I don t think it s going to let up for a very long time AP NHL https apnews com hub nhl Source