An unlikely hero helps the Oilers drag Panthers back to Alberta

We are four games through the 2025 Stanley Cup Final and this series has already given us enough twists and turns for it to be considered one of the best in the history of the sport.

Two Goliath teams are going back and forth in the most unpredictable ways possible.

Late tying goals, blown leads, and just jaw-dropping skill that has been a shining example of what makes this sport so good.

In Game 1, Leon Draisaitl’s overtime winner sent Rogers Place into a frenzy and had fans thinking that this would be the year that the Oilers’ stars would power them to hockey’s ultimate prize.

In Game 2, Corey Perry scores in the dying seconds, and it felt like Edmonton was a team that simply couldn’t be denied. Then Brad Marchand flipped the script.

In Game 3, a Panthers blowout had people thinking that maybe the defending champions just had a level to their game that the Oilers couldn’t touch.

And then we got Game 4.

An early 3-0 lead by the Panthers had Oilers fans who made the trip down to Sunrise slouching back in their seats and drowning their sorrows with intermission beers. The Oilers were shockingly undisciplined and continued to struggle against a strong Florida forecheck. Their defensemen were very timid with the puck on their sticks, and it felt like the Panthers were in a different class.

Then the Oilers pulled off a comeback that had Oil Country thinking that this thing was going back to Alberta all tied up at 2.

They fired a few shots high on Sergei Bobrovsky, which is something they absolutely need to make a habit out of, and in less than 20 minutes, they went from a lifeless, defeated group to a team that had found its swagger.

They thrive on the game flowing and rolling their lines. They don’t necessarily need the other team to make mistakes in order to win, they just need to get enough chances and they were getting a lot of looks.

Not only did they score three times, but they missed on three different breakaways, including one from Connor McDavid that may have gone down as the most beautiful goal ever scored in a Stanley Cup Final game.

They worked themselves into a position where one shot could win the game and it felt like Jake Walman had delivered that dagger. His stick was almost touching the jumbotron at the arena as he wired a slapshot past Sergei Bobrovsky, who was tremendous once again in this game.

They were 19.6 seconds away from a storybook ending, but it turns out that the story had a few more chapters.