Florida Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2024 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.
In his seventh entry, Rodrigues talks about the Panthers losing 5-1 to the Oilers in Game 6 and getting ready to try once again to win the Cup in Game 7 back home at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday.
Sometimes, that’s just how the game goes. Sometimes you get bounces and sometimes they do. There are games that Sergei Bobrovsky has stood on his head for us and games where their goalie Stuart Skinner has done the same. At the end of the day, you have to put your best foot forward. You have to flush it down the drain. It’s one game. that’s all it is, is one game. That’s the mentality and you have to go. It’s do or die at this point. It’s one game, you give it your best shot and that’s all you can do.
I mean, we were talking between periods, but you always do no matter what. There are always adjustments to be made. We’ll look at video, we’ll learn, and we’ll get better.
We’re just thinking about Game 7. It’s what you dream of. We put ourselves in a good spot to get here and it doesn’t matter whether it was one win each or we won three and then they won three. It’s Game 7. Simple as that. It’s what you live for, it’s what you dream of and get ready to go.
You just flush everything and get ready for Game 7. You just do. You go through losing streaks during the regular season, go through them in the playoffs, and you hit the reset button and you focus on the next game, the next play. That’s about it. That’s all you can do.
Getting to play this final one at home, during the regular season, every game is important for this reason: You want home ice. You try to put yourself in the best spot and we did that. Game 7 on home ice: again, you can’t be mad about that. It’s a chance to win the Stanley Cup, simple as that.
