Everyone gets goalied, eventually. A team can do everything right—it can dictate play, it can dominate possession, it can earn plenty of great looks on net—but there's still that last guy to beat, and sometimes he simply won't allow it. There's little you can do but tap your stick to him. The Florida Panthers got the quintessential Goalie Game from Sergei Bobrovsky Saturday night in a 3-0 win, and you might never see a netminder more locked in. The Oilers better hope they won't, or it'll be a short Final.
Edmonton would seem the team best equipped to avoid running into a game like this, through sheer quantity. They had more shots than any team in the NHL in the regular season, and they monopolized the puck in this one, outshooting Florida 32-18. They weren't just chucking pucks, either; high-danger chances were 18-6, Oilers. Expected goals were 5.61-1.88 in favor of the Oil Men, and even if you mistrust that metric, the spread still tells the story through its hilarious width. But for every breakaway, every bit of daylight, there was Bobrovsky, putting a glove or a blocker or a pad in the way.
