Written by Graeme on Saturday, June 15th, 2024
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It’s a do-or-die game for the Edmonton Oilers tonight.
They lost 4-3 on Thursday and my over easily hit which was nice.
It was a fairly close game. The real difference was mistakes. The Oilers made mistakes, and the Panthers capitalized.
Florida are showing their experience and for Edmonton, it’s more of a big learning experience. They will be hoping they can at least get one win in this series and not get sweeped.
Here are our thoughts in what could be the final game of the year. And as a reminder, I am doing Euro 2024 Picks on my Patreon. Got off to a winning start, unfortunately, with Germany -1. You can register and not pay until end of month, so if you aren’t happy or don’t think it’s worth it, you don’t have to pay a penny.
I often do NHL advanced metric analysis on there too.
Scott: Well the Oilers scored late to get within one goal but they came up short in front of their home crowd.
The Oilers outshot the Panthers 35-23 but Bobrovsky was there and ready. The Oilers also went 0-3 on the powerplay.
The Panthers were able to score 3 times in 6:19 in the 2nd period and they held the lead.
At this point it’s all but a Cup for the Panthers. The Oilers have the players to win them games but it’s their goaltending that isn’t helping them. A team has come back in the Finals after being down 3-0 in the series once and that was way, way back in 1942.
I did pick the Panthers to win the series but I didn’t think it was going to go like this. They are just a good team who are really hard to play against. To see McDavid looking frustrated and not playing his usual way must really be alarming for the Oilers.
Panthers win incl OT
Graeme: I really don’t know what to bet for this one. I feel it’s 50/50, but we’re getting 50/50 odds at the very best so it’s 0EV if we take Panthers, -EV if we take Oilers.
But it’s potentially last game, so let’s go by the metrics for the entire series and go for a bet based on that eh.
Oilers better Corsi & Fenwick. Much more shots. xGF is about the same with Panthers a slight edge. The Oilers lack of conversion is killing them.
Oilers HDCF/60 is better but zero HDGF.
Oilers having brutal luck with a PDO of 0.889.
Basically looking at all that – I think things HAVE to fall their way. They’ve been unfortunate. I’m fine with Oilers win incl OT
Probably not bets.
I can’t see anything but “shots” player props, but the goal total range I can’t see clearly. Looking over previous Finals series since 2017, I don’t see a reliable pattern. The series is gravitating to Under, but the Oilers just netted 3 and should feel encouraged to send in wave after wave of plays and shots. The Oilers are only getting goals from whatever their depth is, surprise shooters, and so who will it be this time? That makes picking props basically impossible. Not entirely comfortable with McDavid at OVER 3.5 shots, but that’s the one I’m most likely to try.
Oiler mistakes cost them dearly last game. Very unnecessary and high risk clearing efforts beside the net by Skinner and Nurse were immediately converted to goals by the Panthers. Without those errors, the Oilers would have won the game. Game 4 will again have highly charged fans and tim pressure. If the Oilers get down a goal or two, will mistakes creep in again? If the Oilers get a lead of a goal or two, I’d expect them to go berserk on offense, which would lead to an Over. Overall, it’s all “what if” and I can’t see picking anything.
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