Edmonton Oilers clinging to hope, but this is as bleak as it gets

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This is the part where we either pretend the Edmonton Oilers have a chance to come back from 3-0 down and win the Stanley Cup or declare the series is over, when we all know it’s not over until somebody wins four games.

In this purgatory, a no man’s land between false hope and giving up, neither option is a lot of fun.

This is as bleak as it gets. In NHL history, 28 teams have jumped out to a 3-0 series lead and 27 of them went on to win the Stanley Cup. Twenty of those 28 teams completed the sweep.

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Only once (the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs) has a team ever risen from the dead to shock the world.

So the Oilers, back at Rogers Place for practice Friday morning after Thursday’s gutting loss, understand there isn’t anyone left in the hockey world who believes this ends any other way than Florida lifting the trophy.

“People have counted us out the entire year and the odds say we won’t win,” said winger Zach Hyman. “But the odds said at American Thanksgiving that we wouldn’t make the playoffs.

“When there’s no room for error, we respond, we’ve done it the entire year. We’re going to respond. We have a strong belief in this group.”

It was reasonable to think the Oilers would lose this series. Florida is a heavy, deep, skilled and disciplined power team with the best goalie in the playoffs. And they’re juiced up on motivation and experience after losing in last year’s Cup final.

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No shame in losing to the Panthers.

What we didn’t expect in a million years is that the Oilers would lose because Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Hyman and Evan Bouchard couldn’t get anything done offensively. Nor would anyone have ever predicted that one of the weak links in this series would be Edmonton’s unstoppable power play.

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But the numbers don’t lie. Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman don’t have a single point between them in the final. McDavid has three assists. Bouchard has one. The power play is 0-for-10.

“They’re playing well, they’re making plays but the puck is just not going in,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said of his top guys. “It’s the finishing rate, being able to put the puck in the net, which is a very big part of the game.

“I’m disappointed we’re in this situation but it it’s what it is. We have a lot to be optimistic about.”

This is what Florida does. They shut down Tampa’s best players, they shut down Boston’s best players, they shut down New York’s best players and now they are doing the same to Edmonton’s stars.

McDavid is the first to admit he hasn’t been bearing down like he needs to. He had a couple of good chances in Game 3 and fired wide on opportunities that could have tipped the scales.

“You have to have a lot of respect for how (Bobrovsky) is playing, but at the same time, I can only speak for myself, there are looks there and you have to put it in the net,” said McDavid. “There are looks there, you have to make a play.

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“And you can’t score from the outside against these guys, you have to get to the middle.”

Offence isn’t all of it. It doesn’t help that Edmonton players hold down the six worst plus-minus totals in the playoffs and that the Oilers are making life a lot easier for Florida by serving up a nightly buffet of Grade A mistakes.

“The series is 3-0 but it doesn’t feel like a 3-0 series,” said Hyman. “It’s not like we’re going out there and being absolutely dominated by a team that’s better than us. It’s moments in the game where they’ve shown a little more maturity than we have.

“If we’re able to limit those freebies and just play the way that we can, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win every game. You just have to win one and start the momentum.”

Teams facing the gun in situations like these always talk about just having to win one game because it’s true. The Oilers can go down swinging. That’s all they have left. Play a strong, solid game, show what they can be, and take it from there.

This is team that won eight games in a row, and then 16 games in a row, so it can get as hot as anyone. And wouldn’t that be the most Oilerest way to win a Stanley Cup — back themselves into an impossible corner so that even their most loyal, diehard supporters have to say ‘OK, it’s over,’ and then run off four straight wins to prove everybody wrong.

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That’s a nice dream, it’s also lot to ask of a an Oilers team that is 12-9 in the playoffs this year, while Florida is 15-5.

But that’s the plan.

“The majority of this group has been together for three years, every single person in here is a brother,” said winger Warren Foegele. “It honestly feels like a family. What a great opportunity to go and do something that’s only been done once, and do it with your brothers. I’m excited. Every day is a new opportunity to be a hero.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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