So much for moving on from the memories of horrors in Florida. The Edmonton Oilers failed to keep up with the fast, swarming and dominating offense of the Florida Panthers in their home ice as fans cheered loudly for most of the game as the defending champions pulled off a 6-1 victory at home to take a 2-1 series lead.

Coming off a split in two intense games to start off the series, the Panthers went on to flip the script with a strong showing of their offensive prowess, setting the tone for the second half of the series as the defending champs keep the win. Fans at the Amerant Bank Arena were pleased to see the victory and went out celebrating down to the final minute.

The Oilers are now forced to regroup, find answers and try to solve the mystery of why they gave up so many goals. Now they find themselves in a tough spot with another game to go in Florida – a place that the team has dreaded so much after losing the last two games there. After all, two more of these disappointing games, and their wonder comeback season will come to a tough end.

A Big Game for Florida

Brad Marchand tallied another goal for the third game in a row and has set Stanley Cup Finals records in that regard. Sam Bennett dropped an NHL-leading 14th goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs – everything worked well in favor of Florida.

Sam Reinhart also notched his first goal in three weeks together with an assist, while both Carter Verhaeghe and Evan Rodrigues each had a goal and an assist for the Panthers. Eetu Luostarinen had two assists, and Sergei Bobrovsky was his usual defensive self with a whopping 32 saves.

"We played super well and super disciplined, just like a veteran, older team who's been here," Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk said. "This is our third time at it. We know it's a series, and we've got to stick up for each other, but got to be smart too. I thought it was great that guys were sticking up for each other, and at the end of the day, it's just a big win and just one game."

The Panthers made the Oilers work for everything, and it turned out well as they made short work of the Western Conference Champions. They only allowed one goal, which would have been really quite stunning at this point.

A Nightmare Game for Edmonton

The Oilers were out of their usual selves in this loss. Corey Perry was the only player to score for the team, but both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl could not log anything on the score sheet thanks to that swarming Panthers defense. McDavid had two shots on goal, while Draisaitl – the Game 1 hero – did not have any shot attempts, reminiscent of the previous series they played here.

"Oh definitely the third period is an unraveling," Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. "I don't think we would have acted or played like that had the game been a one-goal or two-goal game. I don't know, boys being boys I guess, just trying to make investments for the next game."

Edmonton could not capitalize on the power play that time even if they had 11 tries, while the Panthers scored three goals off their own power plays. Darnell Nurse, Trent Frederic, Mattias Ekholm, Evander Kane and Kasperi Kapanen were also sent out of the game after receiving a 10-minute misconduct in the final 10 minutes of the game.