RECAP: Florida Panthers 4, Edmonton Oilers 3

The Florida Panthers defeat the Edmonton Oilers in a 2024 Stanley Cup Final rematch despite the absence of Matthew Tkachuk.

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers picked things up right where they left off when they met at Amerant Bank Arena for the first time since the Game 7 thriller of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

The match-up did not lose its juice, even with Matthew Tkachuk missing from the Florida lineup with an injury.

Florida and Edmonton traded blows before the Panthers ultimately skated off with a 4-3 win on Thursday night.

Anton Lundell led the charge with three assists and Nate Schmidt scored the go-ahead goal with 8:52 to go in the third period. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 25 shots in the win for Florida.

Florida and Edmonton wasted no time getting re-acclimated with each other.

A.J. Greer and Corey Perry dropped the gloves 2:52 into the game and exchanged some haymakers to get a rowdy Amerant Bank Arena crowd of 19,456 going.

The Panthers took that energy and ran with it, drawing two penalties in the ensuing four minutes. Except they could not capitalize on either of them.

The former of the two went away quietly while Florida had a goal get called back early in the latter. Carter Verhaeghe wired a shot past Stuart Skinner off of a feed from Sam Reinhart 7:15 into the second period, only it was ruled offside after a quick review.

Uvis Balinskis gave the Panthers the lead, for real, with 7:32 to go in the first. He slipped a wrist shot past Skinner’s glove side with Anton Lundell providing the screen up front to draw first blood.

Brett Kulak tied the game with 5:19 to go in the first period, beating Bobrovsky with a quick wrist shot from the slot that he had no answer for.

Anton Lundell restored Florida’s lead with 4:30 to go in the second period, deflecting an Aaron Ekblad shot past Skinner. Balinskis had a chance to extend that lead to two goals 30 seconds later, but he rang the inside of the crossbar and the puck just bounced out of the gaping cage.

Leon Draisaitl tied the game for Edmonton with 3:30 to go. He powered his was past Gustav Forsling, drove in on goal, and lifted a wrist shot past Bobrovsky for his league-leading 44th goal of the season.

After both teams exchanged power plays to no avail, the Panthers pounced on the counter-attack near the midway point of the third period.

Lundell spun off of a defender and sent A.J. Greer onto the rush before he found Schmidt in the slot. The veteran blueliner wired a snap shot past Skinner to give the Panthers the lead.

Verhaeghe extended the lead to 4-2 with 6:09 to go. He picked up the rebound of his own blocked shot, then pocketed home the change for his 16th goal of the season.

Zach Hyman tapped home a Connor McDavid rebound that squeaked past Bobrovsky with 3:25 to go to cut Florida’s lead to one.

The Panthers picked up their sixth win in their past eight games to move one point ahead of the idle Toronto Maple Leafs for the top seed in the Atlantic Division.