After a thoroughly disappointing performance on home ice Saturday evening, the Edmonton Oilers are now tasked with winning a do-or-die Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena, where they suffered a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in Game 7 last season. The Oilers are heavier underdogs in Game 6 than they were in Game 4, after the Florida Panthers put on a defensive clinic en route to a comfortable 5-2 win in Game 5.

The Florida Panthers are currently priced at -357 to win the series, implying a 78 percent chance of winning the Cup for a second consecutive season.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes and outline my favourite betting angles below.

The Oilers have plenty of questions to answer after their ugly performance on home ice in Game 5 as they attempt to drag the series back to Edmonton for winner-take-all Game 7.

The Panthers are proving to be a salary-cap era dynasty, and the 2024-25 edition may ultimately be viewed as one of the better teams in recent memory. Even still, the Oilers’ lack of urgency throughout the first part of Saturday’s matchup would make this potential series loss more frustrating than last season, as they punted away a pivotal Game 5 with a lethargic opening two periods.

The Panthers were seemingly faster to every loose puck in the first period of Game 5, which allowed them generate plenty of lengthy sequences of play in the offensive zone. The Oilers’ forecheck was timid and disconcerted throughout most of Game 5, allowing Florida to expose the Oilers’ defensive core, which had a shaky showing overall.

Head coach Kris Knoblauch appears to be making several changes to the lineup after Game 5, most of which were relatively predictable.

Kasperi Kapanen appears to be drawing back into the lineup after being a healthy scratch on Saturday, which seems to be a wise decision given the way Kapanen has competed throughout the majority of the postseason. He will skate on the second line alongside Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane.

Mattias Ekholm will move back to the left side to play alongside Evan Bouchard, which is a logical move after he struggled playing the right side alongside Jake Walman in Game 5.

Walman and John Klingberg have formed a surprisingly effective pairing throughout the majority of the postseason, though Klingberg’s level of play has fallen off in this series. They hold a 59.7 percent expected goal share in 199.9 minutes together this postseason.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in particular, had disappointing evening’s in Game 5 and will need to offer more dominant performances in this difficult spot, and they are both capable of doing so. They will both likely handle close, hefty workloads in this matchup, and Knoblauch will likely look to pair them together in favourable situations to try and kickstart the offence.

Stuart Skinner appears to be getting the start in goal, which seems to be the right move regardless of the outcome of this game. Skinner was not the reason the Oilers fell behind 3-0 in Game 4, and going back to the team’s number-one option for a do-or-die matchup is a more natural move than sticking with Calvin Pickard after a losing result.

Over the last two postseasons, generating offence versus the Panthers has typically become a more-and-more difficult task in the later games of each series. They allowed only one high-danger scoring chance in the first period of Game 5 and only eight high-danger scoring chances throughout the entire game, many of those coming when the game was out of reach for the Oilers.

The Panthers did a great job of getting pucks in deep and outworking the Oilers throughout the first two periods of Game 5, which went a long way to keeping Edmonton’s high-powered offence in check. They also did a great job of breaking up plays through the box while shorthanded and getting in shooting lanes.

From an offensive perspective, the Panthers did not generate a ton of true Grade “A” scoring chances themselves in Game 5, though they did clearly dictated play throughout the majority of the contest. Brad Marchand scored two fantastic individual goals thanks to some shoddy defence from Ekholm and Walman, but arguably the greatest concern for the Oilers was their inability to sustain any offensive zone time, rather than their overall defensive play.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 19 of 21 shots faced, and now holds a .912 save percentage and +11.1 GSAx rating this postseason.

The Oilers will need to offer a much better performance than they did on Saturday in order to extend their season, but they might be capable of doing so more often than oddsmakers are expecting, and my lean would be with Edmonton as an underdog in terms of a side.

Momentum has not really carried over from game to game in this series, and the Oilers have arguably been better on the road this postseason, while the Panthers have been slightly less effective on home ice. Considering those factors, Florida might be slightly overvalued at -154, which is the most favoured it has been in this series.

Betting Game 5 to feature under 6.5 goals ultimately turned into a pretty frustrating loss, but the thought process seemed reasonable and it was fairly unlucky to eventually become a loser thanks to a flurry of late goals. It seems reasonable to believe that this will be an even tighter-checking affair and that it may take some time for the game to open up, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this game played out somewhat similarly to last year’s Game 7 in Sunrise.

At +105 I see value in betting the first period to feature under 1.5 goals, and would bet it down to +100.