Strength vs. strength: Making mid-series Cup case for Panthers, Oilers 6i4y2q

Edmonton's Game 3 implosion aside, the Stanley Cup Final has been as d - tight, exhilarating, and full of storylines. The Panthers hold a 2-1 lead over the Oilers with Game 4 set for Thursday night in Sunrise, Florida. a5e4d

"I don't think our best has shown up all series long, but it's coming," Oilers captain Connor McDavid told reporters following the 6-1 defeat in Game 3.

There's weight to McDavid's words. Down 3-0 in last year's final, Edmonton dominated Florida in Game 4, then won Games 5 and 6 to force a title-decider.

Below we lay out each team's mid-series Cup case.

Panthers' case 355t1d

This Cup Final rematch was well-hyped for a variety of reasons, including the stylistic clash between a forechecking giant (Florida) and a fast-break nightmare (Edmonton). It turns out one team doesn't care for the contrast.

The Panthers are capable of trading rush chances if a game becomes a track meet, whereas the Oilers tend to get stuck in the mud if a game hinges on puck retrievals, board battles, and cycles. Put another way, Florida's better at playing Edmonton's preferred style than Edmonton is at playing Florida's.

A chief reason for the imbalance: There are no engers in the Panthers' top nine. Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand, Eetu Luostarinen, and Evan Rodrigues are all impact players in their own right and, perhaps most importantly, are highly intelligent players who consistently adapt their game to the style du jour.

Reinhart, for instance, is both a master of the little details (getting pucks off the wall and into space, deflecting wide point shots, intercepting opponents' es) and a lethal sniper off the rush. The winger, declared fully healthy by coach Paul Maurice on Tuesday, has been misfiring a ton lately but did snap a five-game goal drought in Game 3. It came off a hard forecheck, of course.

Bennett and Marchand ing for eight of Florida's 14 goals must be keeping Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch up at night. It's starting to feel inevitable that the rest of the top nine - three total goals - will pop off. Tkachuk, who's bagged five goals off 90 shot attempts in the playoffs, is due.

Meanwhile, the Panthers' sparingly used fourth line is serviceable.

Resilience runs through the forward group, and it'll be extra important in the last stretch of the final. From Jonah Gadjovich (team-low 7:40 a night) to Barkov (20:24, each second against stiff competition), there's an understanding that a goal against or a cheap shot against is not cause for panic. Go back out there and score one yourself. Go out and draw a penalty.

Oilers' case 341414

The hill to climb, while not impossibly steep, is still a challenging one.

To recap: The Oilers need to win three of four. They're not as healthy as the opposition, with Zach Hyman out for the series and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins a game-time decision for Thursday. There are questions about goaltending quality and an inability to stay out of the penalty box. And McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are coming off a game in which they combined for one shot attempt.

As for the optimistic view, Edmonton boasts not only the greatest player of his generation and arguably the second-best player on the planet but also irrefutable evidence that Nos. 97 and 29 can rise to the occasion. The Oilers own a confidence-boosting 18-2 record in Games 4-7 in the Knoblauch era.

They also have the first two games of this series as proof the Panthers are solvable. Both games went to overtime and the aggregate five-on-five score was 5-4 for Florida. One goal is nothing in a hotly contested Cup Final.

There's a chance the referees put their whistles away following a penalty-filled Game 3. The Oilers would be fine with that shift because they've killed off only 67% of penalties and tend to thrive in games with fewer stops and starts. In general, Edmonton, a team filled with wily veterans, has surely learned its lesson around the extracurricular stuff.

For how surgical the Panthers can be, they play with fire by applying so much pressure in the neutral and offensive zones. Do that enough times against McDavid and you'll eventually pay. Sergei Bobrovsky is a future Hall of Famer, but he's not spoken about in the same as countryman Andrei Vasilevskiy or other all-time clutch goalies for a reason - he isn't impenetrable.

The Oilers need fewer low-percentage "Bouch bombs" off the stick of Evan Bouchard and more high-danger chaos. McDavid, Draisaitl, and Corey Perry have been tremendous as Knoblauch's so-called nuclear option, controlling 69% of the attempts, 69% of the shots, and 71% of the goals in 25 minutes together. With a maximum of four games remaining in the season, McDavid and Draisaitl can empty the tank and throw everything they have at Bobrovsky.

John Matisz is theScore's senior NHL writer. Follow John on Twitter ([email protected]).