How many of you were excited about Game 3? How many of you lost that excitement before the game was 40 minutes old? Yeah, me too. But that’s what you get when the Edmonton Oilers aren’t ready to play, fumble their way through 60 minutes of hockey, and fall to the Florida Panthers in a 6-1 beatdown.

I know there are times when you’re going to give up an early goal — sports can be weird sometimes — but that does not excuse the Oilers from looking lifeless through the first 40 minutes. It was as if the early goal by Marchand caught the boys off guard or something, because they couldn’t get their feet under them from there. Instead, the Oilers took four penalties in the first period and essentially knee-capped themselves instead of finding a way to fight back.

Even when Corey Perry scored early in the second period to halve Florida’s lead, the Oilers still couldn’t get out of their own way. Instead, they fell right into Florida’s trap, losing all structure and composure until the game was long over, even with plenty of time left on the clock. That’s a frustrating way to lose. It’s one thing to lose, but it’s another thing entirely to look like you weren’t even supposed to be there. That’s how it felt for most of the night from my spot in section 311 at the Amerant Bank Arena. I’m not sure if the Oilers got too much sun or what the deal was, but that loss was as embarrassing as it gets for this time of year.

As someone who happily pumps Stuart Skinner’s tires when he’s playing well, I feel it’s only fair to call him out when he wasn’t anywhere close to being good enough. That was the case in Game 3 after Stu got the hook after allowing five goals on only 23 shots, which was good for a .783 save percentage. While I would say that not all five of those goals were his fault, I’d also suggest Skinner didn’t do himself any favours on most of them either. Even if we take away the breakaway goal and one of the power play goals that the Panthers executed on perfectly, there were still three more goals that probably should have been stopped.

When Skinner is at his best, he looks big in his crease and seems to have a knack for being square to the shooter. When he’s not on top of his game, Stu looks small despite his significant stature, and there was no better example than the times he was beaten up and over his shoulders. Yes, there were defensive breakdowns in front of him — John Klingberg ran straight into the linesman for one of them — but you still need your goaltender to step up with clutch saves from time to time, even when the world is melting down around him. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to secure those saves on Monday night, and instead of kicking off the road games with a win, Stu found himself on the bench for the third period, and his teammates found themselves down 2-1 in the series.

While Game 4 isn’t a literal ‘must-win’ situation for the Oilers, you’d have to think it’s pretty damned close in the spiritual sense of the series. While I know the Oilers can and will be better than what we got on Monday in Game 3, that doesn’t make me any less nervous about what’s to come 25 days from now when these two teams get back on the ice. As I mentioned above, the Oilers looked so unprepared to play that hockey game that it was almost dumbfounding how they could be so bad in a moment that big. Either way, Thursday’s game just became that much more important after dropping the last two, and this team had better be ready to play and lock in the split or risk that chance of losing in the Final on home ice. That simply cannot happen.

I know Connor McDavid said in his post game that the Oilers haven’t “played their best this series but it’s coming,” but my rebuttal to that would be wondering what the hell they’re waiting for. If Edmonton couldn’t get themselves fired up to go into a quiet barn and steal a road win then it’s going to take a lot of hoping and praying that they can find that next gear in the next few days. Either they do or we’ll find ourselves on the ropes for the second straight SCF, which is a situation that seems almost impossible to accept. The good news is that Hope Will Never Die, and no one wins the Stanley Cup with only two wins, but even knowing that doesn’t make the sting of this one feel any better.

1. Do you think it’s a problem that the Panthers went 3/11 on the power play? Yeah, me too. I know that most of those penalties happened in the third period when the game was already over, but the problems started long before that, when Edmonton seemed content to send players to the penalty box early and often. And, yeah, some of the calls were absolute nonsense, but that didn’t stop the problems from being real anyway. The Oilers need to play with more discipline than they’ve shown, as anything less simply plays right into the Panthers’ hands.

2. I’ve been fortunate enough to watch a lot of playoff hockey in different arenas over the last handful of years, and I’ve never experienced anything like what we got last night in Florida. That rink was whisper quiet until the third period shenanigans took over, and I wasn’t sure if I was at a Cup Final game or watching the Oilers play the Minnesota Wild on a Monday in January. I’d say about 1/4 of the building left in the third period despite the Panthers dominating the Oilers from jump street, and I couldn’t imagine ever seeing anything like that in a market where people actually care. Wild stuff.

3. Can we bring Troy Stecher back to fix the Darnell Nurse pairing? Please? I don’t know what it is about those two that works, but they seem to work on a higher level than any of the other d-men that get partnered with No. 25. I know +/- isn’t everyone’s favourite stat anymore, but John Klingberg’s -3 stood out like a sore thumb.

4. At least the Oilers won 51.6% of the faceoffs, so the whole night wasn’t a total write off. I keed, I keed.

5. The NHL boxscore had the giveaways listed at 12 for the Oilers and seven for the Panthers, but those numbers don’t seem anywhere close to accurate to me.

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