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Oilers Game Notes: Panthers can play spoiler as lost season winds down
Photo credit: © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
This won’t be a preview of a third straight Stanley Cup Final between Edmonton and Florida.
The Oilers are still chasing top spot in the Pacific Division, but the Panthers are running out of time, sitting 13 points back of a playoff spot with just over a month left.
With their season slipping away, the back-to-back defending champs arrive in Edmonton with little left to chase beyond playing spoiler.
Florida Panthers at Edmonton Oilers
- Date: Thursday, March 19, 2026
- Start Time: 7:00 PM MT
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta
- Venue: Rogers Place
- Watch: Sportsnet
1. Three consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final appear to have caught up with Florida this season.
Multiple key players have missed significant time due to injury. Captain Aleksander Barkov underwent knee surgery in September and only recently returned to practice, while Matthew Tkachuk didn’t make his season debut until mid-January after dealing with a torn adductor and sports hernia suffered at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off.
Veterans Seth Jones and Brad Marchand have also missed time because of injuries. The only Panther to appear in all 67 games this season is defenceman Gustav Forsling.
2. Florida enters this game with a 33-31-3 record, sitting eighth in the Atlantic Division and 15th in the Eastern Conference.
The absence of Barkov and Tkachuk has taken a toll at both ends of the ice. The Panthers rank 20th in the NHL with 197 goals scored and 26th with 224 goals against. For comparison, they ranked seventh defensively in 2024-25 and first in 2023-24.
Sergei Bobrovsky has also struggled, posting a .876 save percentage in 46 games. The 37-year-old is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer following the final season of his seven-year, $70 million contract.
Sam Reinhart leads the team with 29 goals, a drop from the 39 he posted last season and well off his 2023-24 pace. Brad Marchand has 27 goals, Sam Bennett has 25, and Carter Verhaeghe sits at 19.
3. Six Oilers have played in all 69 games this season: Connor McDavid, Matt Savoie, Vasily Podkolzin, Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and Darnell Nurse.
Edmonton largely avoided major injuries to its core until Leon Draisaitl was sidelined for the remainder of the regular season after a hit from Nashville’s Ozzy Wiesblatt last week. Draisaitl finished with 35 goals and 97 points in 65 games and is expected to be ready for the playoffs.
In their first game without him, the Oilers earned a 5-3 win over San Jose. Five different players scored, and Edmonton tightened things defensively in the third period to close out a Sharks team pushing for points.
4. The Oilers have won the first two games of this homestand and are looking to string together a third consecutive win for just the second time this season.
Florida, meanwhile, has dropped the first two games of its Western Canadian road trip, falling 6-2 in Seattle and 5-2 in Vancouver. The Panthers will play on back-to-back nights in Edmonton and Calgary.
5. A win on Thursday would give Edmonton a sweep of the season series. In each of the past two seasons, Florida swept the regular-season meetings before going on to beat the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final.
Back in November, Edmonton earned a 6-3 win in Florida. Jack Roslovic scored twice, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm each recorded three points, and Stuart Skinner stopped 35 of 38 shots.
What they said…
Head coach Kris Knoblauch on how the Oilers played against San Jose without Leon Draisaitl…
“Having some adversity, missing some guys, is OK for a team, as long as we have guys who are capable of stepping up and playing better. I believe we do, so we should be all right. I liked how we came out and played most of the third period. I thought we simplified our game, played more tenaciously. We were a lot more direct.”
Adam Henrique on how the Oilers need everyone to step up with Draisaitl done for the regular season…
“We talked about how no one guy is going to replace him. It’s something we’re going to have to do collectively from here to the end of the season and see where that takes us. I thought tonight we did a good job responding at different points in the game, and contributions like that offensively are big.”
Florida defenceman Seth Jones following the team’s 5-2 loss in Vancouver earlier this week…
“It doesn’t matter who you are playing, a team at home gets up, the crowd gets behind them, and then they really tighten it up defensively … it’s hard to generate anything. We had some decent shifts in the third period, [Tkachuk’s] line, some action around the net but it’s just too little, too late.”
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice on the five goals Florida allowed in their loss to the Canucks…
“The goals we gave up are just so unusual for us. The two penalty kill goals, we got that puck on our stick and we got to get those clears, but we left guys alone three times tonight in front of our net. I don’t ever remember seeing that.”
Final word…
The Panthers sit well back of the playoff picture, but that doesn’t make them an easy out.
A team with nothing to lose can be dangerous, especially one with Florida’s pedigree and deep-seated hatred for its opponent. If the Oilers want to keep pace in a tight Pacific Division race, they’ll need to match the urgency of an opponent playing with freedom and push.
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