Oilers hold off Panthers in Game 5, stay alive again in Cup Final

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Connor McDavid had four points again, and the Edmonton Oilers for the second time in as many games rode their captain to extend their season and the Stanley Cup Final.

McDavid had two goals and two assists, giving him eight points in the past two games and 11 in the series, and the Oilers defeated the Florida Panthers 5-3 in Game 5 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday.

He is the first player in NHL history to have back-to-back four-point games in the Stanley Cup Final, and Edmonton became the first team to win a Game 5 on the road after falling behind 3-0 in the series.

The Panthers lead the best-of-7 series, but now it's 3-2 after back-to-back wins by the Oilers, who have outscored Florida 15-4 since the third period of Game 3.

Game 6 is at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Friday.

"He puts this team on his back," Edmonton forward Corey Perry said of McDavid. "When we're against the wall, he puts us on his back and he plays. You see why he is the best player."

Connor Brown scored a short-handed goal in the first period, Zach Hyman and Perry each had a power-play goal in the second period, and Evan Bouchard had three assists for the Oilers, the Western Conference champions. Stuart Skinner made 29 saves.

Bouchard, who has 26 assists during these playoffs, set an NHL record for most assists in a single postseason by a defenseman, surpassing Paul Coffey’s record of 25. 

Edmonton was plus-3 on special teams.

"It was a total effort from everybody," McDavid said. "Special teams, obviously, were great. The penalty kill, there's nothing else to really say. It's been great. 'Brownie' scores a nice goal there to kind of settle us in. The power play got going, 'Stu' was great and 5-on-5 we just did enough. It was a total team effort from top to bottom."

Evan Rodrigues and Matthew Tkachuk each had a goal and an assist, Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored and Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves for the Panthers, the Eastern Conference champions.

Florida was 0-for-3 on the power play with the short-handed goal against, falling to 1-for-16 with two short-handed goals against in the series.

"Absolutely nothing has changed for our situation in the last two games except we learned some things," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "Some lessons we don't need to learn, we've learned them enough. But we keep getting taught those lessons. But nothing's changed for us. Not one thing.”

Brown got the Oilers started with a short-handed goal at 5:30 of the first period. He broke up Brandon Montour's cross-ice pass to Aleksander Barkov at the defensive blue line, won a race to the puck in the neutral zone and scored on a breakaway to make it 1-0.

It's the second straight game the Oilers took a 1-0 lead on a short-handed goal. Brown set up Mattias Janmark's short-handed goal 3:11 into the first period of Game 3.

"Just unacceptable," Tkachuk said. "We've got to start better. I thought our start was good, but we just gave one up and then we were trailing."

Hyman made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 1:58 of the second period. Bouchard's shot from the point went in off Hyman's right leg for Edmonton's first 5-on-4 goal of the series.

"I score a lot of goals from there," Hyman said. "A lot of times it hits me and it goes in, [but] 'Bouchy' seems to hit me and most of the time it doesn't go in, it just hits me. It's nice that that one went in."

McDavid extended it to 3-0 at 5:00 by finding an opening between Bobrovsky and the left post with a shot from below the left face-off circle.

It was Edmonton's ninth straight goal in the series.

"Coming in on that side of the goal I've gone short side lots," McDavid said. "I would say most people know that I look there. [Bobrovsky] was standing. [Hyman] is always around the net, so I tried to put it there and it found a way in."

Tkachuk broke the Oilers' goal streak with his first of the series to cut it to 3-1 at 6:53.

But McDavid set up Perry for a power-play goal to push it to 4-1 at 11:54. McDavid went end-to-end, around Eetu Luostarinen at the offensive blue line and between Niko Mikkola and Dmitry Kulikov above the left hash marks before curling a pass to Perry in the slot for a tap-in.

"I watched him go through guys and then pass it over to me," Perry said. "I didn't even yell for it. He just saw me go to the net. That's just the type of player he is."

McDavid indicated that play was made from studying the Panthers and how they defend his breakouts.

"I'm in that position a lot going back for pucks, breakout, bringing it in the zone, so it's something that I look at a lot how certain guys are playing things," he said. "Mikkola has a really long reach and I just tried to work my way through there, and [Perry] did a great job of working it backdoor."

However, 14 seconds later it was Rodrigues scoring off a rebound of Montour's shot to cut it to 4-2 at 12:08.

Florida continued its comeback with Ekman-Larsson's goal at 4:04 of the third period to make it 4-3. Tkachuk, from below the goal line, found Ekman-Larsson cutting through the left circle and his one-timer went over Skinner's glove.

"It gave us a chance to come back in the game," Ekman-Larsson said. "We kept pushing, kept coming back and gave ourselves a chance."

The Panthers pulled Bobrovsky for the extra skater with 2:35 remaining, but McDavid scored into the empty net with 19 seconds left for the 5-3 final.

"I know a lot of guys counted us out," Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We've been counted out a lot through the playoffs, regular season, whatever. But it doesn't faze the group in there. They have a lot of belief and a lot of just enjoying every extra day because we were counted out a long time ago and we're still here playing hockey in June. We are going back to Edmonton for Game 6 and there's a lot to smile about."

NOTES: McDavid has 42 points (eight goals, 34 assists) in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the fourth most in a single postseason all-time. He's the third player in history to have at least 40 points in a single postseason, joining Wayne Gretzky (three times) and Mario Lemieux (once). … Edmonton's 13 goals when facing elimination (eight in Game 4, five in Game 5) are the most by a team since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs had 19. That Toronto team, which defeated the Detroit Red Wings in seven games, is the only team to win the Stanley Cup after falling behind 3-0 in the Final.