EDMONTON, Alberta -- Connor McDavid was held scoreless, so Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers' other top players stepped up, putting them just one win away from the Stanley Cup.
Draisaitl made his first major impact in the Final by setting up Warren Foegele's early goal. Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman scored in the second period, and the Oilers forced a Game 7 by defeating the Florida Panthers 5-1 in Game 6 on Friday night.
"At the end of the day, we play to win and this is going to be the hardest game for us," Draisaitl said. "We have to bring our game again."
The Oilers are only the third team to tie the final after falling behind 3-0 in the series, and the first since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. They now have the chance on Monday night in Sunrise, Florida, to join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs as the only NHL teams to come all the way back from that deficit to win the Stanley Cup.
"There was an unshakable belief," Hyman said. "No matter what happened throughout the year, we always believed we could pull through. No matter how dire the circumstances, we thought we had a chance. It was a long season facing adversity, which prepared us. The next one will be the hardest. It feels unbelievable to do it in front of this crowd. To have a chance to win now, this is our first opportunity to win."
After falling into a 3-0 series hole, the Oilers have rallied by scoring five-plus goals in three straight games, the longest streak in a Stanley Cup Final since the Pittsburgh Penguins did it in 1991, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
The opportunity to make hockey history and end Canada's three-decade-long Cup drought exists only because of McDavid's heroics, with four points in both Games 4 and 5, taking the Oilers from the brink to belief. This was the first time in his nine-year career that they've won a game without him registering a point or putting a shot on net.
Draisaitl, his longtime running mate from Germany and also a league MVP considered among the best players in the world, lit the spark in Game 5 after being largely ineffective against the Panthers.
"He's a horse," defenseman Darnell Nurse said. "He's always showing up at the biggest moments. You look at all his playoff performances, he's one of the best to ever do it."
Draisaitl got the puck at center ice, skated around and through Florida defenders, and placed it perfectly on Foegele's stick for a tap-in that Sergei Bobrovsky had almost no chance of stopping. The fired-up sellout crowd of 18,000-plus mockingly chanted, "Ser-gei! Ser-gei!"
Despite the chants, Bobrovsky was hardly to blame. Mistakes in front of him also contributed, including the 2-on-1 rush where Henrique beat Bobrovsky off a perfect pass from Mattias Janmark. The Panthers in front of their goaltender looked tight and timid, unlike the juggernaut that reached the final for a second consecutive year and won the first three games to move to the verge of the first title in franchise history.
"We have one game to go," Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov said. "We were ready right from the start to play a seven-game series, and nothing changes now. We got up three, and they played three good games. Now it's up to us to win at home."
Florida had just six shots on net midway through the game and finished with 21. Continuing a trend of being there when the Oilers need him the most, goaltender Stuart Skinner made timely saves to stymie the Panthers, allowing just a goal to Aleksander Barkov less than 90 seconds into the third period.
"He's been lights-out when we've needed him," Janmark said of Skinner.
The first time Barkov got the puck past him, 10 seconds after Henrique scored, the goal was overturned when Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch successfully challenged for offside. A lengthy review found Sam Reinhart had entered the offensive zone perhaps an inch or less before the puck, the announcement of which was followed by a roar from fans.
"I actually didn't think it was that close," Knoblauch said. "In my mind, it was definitely offside."
That wasn’t the loudest Rogers Place got, though there were plenty of contenders for that distinction. The decibel meter shown on the video screens reached 113.8 when the Oilers stepped onto the ice to the tune of Metallica's "Enter Sandman."
The noise level likely approached that again when Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse scored empty-netters in the final minutes, setting off chants of "We want the Cup!" and a wild celebration at the viewing party outside.
The fever pitch reflected a city awash in a sea of blue and orange downtown in the hours before puck drop. Friday might as well have been a holiday in Edmonton, with nearly a million residents now fully able to dream of the Oilers adding another championship banner to the rafters — and doing so in the most improbable way possible.
"We're just excited to keep our season going," McDavid said. "That's what it's been about. One game at a time, one day at a time. Looking forward to the next one."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.