Edmonton Oilers forward Connor Brown will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2025 Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.
In his fifth entry, after a 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place on Saturday that gives Florida a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series, Brown talks about the slower start, missed opportunities and the belief that they can win Game 6 on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC) and force a winner-take-all Game 7.
We’re disappointed about tonight, but it’s felt like right from the start, this series is destined to go seven and now we have a big game ahead of us in order to bring them back to Alberta and have a Game 7 at home.
I don’t know that we had a letdown here, but we had some breakdowns. We had some chances right off the bat. It wasn’t our best game. We know we can play better. We need to learn from it.
For me, I had a couple of chances tonight. I had one early in the first. I thought I skated the best I have in this whole series tonight. I was in on a few good chances, but they didn’t fall. I just skated well, just felt good.
We had some jump early with a boost from the crowd and everything, but they just capitalized on a few chances and that took a bit of wind out of our sails, and we weren’t able to hit on our power plays. It just wasn’t our night.
It was a tight game out there. They checked well. So did we; they didn’t have many chances. But they just put theirs away.
They are burying their chances and now the series is 3-2. But they haven’t won anything yet.
Brad Marchand is obviously hot, another two goals tonight. He’s capitalizing on his chances and is feeling good, but that can change pretty quick.
We need to learn from this game. We don’t want to flush this, but we want to learn from what we did well, what we can do better and how we can contain him. We’ll learn from it.
It’ll be fun going back to Florida for Game 6. We’ll have some fun on the plane. We will get the boys together and we’ll have some fun at practice on Monday and enjoy being in the Stanley Cup Final.
We’ve been in this situation before, it’s not new. We have had our backs against the wall before, and it seems to bring out the best in us.
