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2024 Stanley Cup Final - Who Will Win the Special Teams Battle Between the Oilers & Panthers
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Jun 8, 2024
In the final 2024 NHL Playoff Preview show, host Matthew Zator welcomes in Jacob Billington and Joey Ganzi to set up the 2024 Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers. In this clip, they take a look at who will win the special teams battle.
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All right. Now another big, big matchup is special teams. Both
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teams have been really good power play. Oilers are still in that streak of they had it killed 28 straight penalties or
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and that's a record franchise record. And they had they're just been really good both ways. I mean, obviously everyone knows
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their power plays ridiculous. Joey, how are they going to go against Panthers going against these two ridiculously good
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special teams? And I know the Panthers have been kind of up and down and their power play throughout the playoffs. How is
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this going to go? I mean, the special teams, this is a big, big storyline. Um, it they really have to find a way to start clicking. Um
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they started finding the back end of the power play last series, but it started to fizzle out very, very quickly. They
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really need to figure out like, they need to figure out who to have on the back end, they need to get more traffic in front
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Um, you take the eyes away from Skinner, you should then they'll be more pucks in the back of the net. But that's the thing
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it's you're going against a elite penalty kill unit. But on the flip side, I think the penalty kill for Florida is
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going to be just as dominant. They've gone against some of the toughest power plays in the NHL, the number one ranked power play
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and in the Tampa Bay Lightning, a very strong power play in Boston, and very strong power play in the Rangers, and they
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only had one goal, one power play goal that entire series. Ironically, a score by Vincent Trocek. But I think as I said
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before, the gauntlet of goaltenders, the gauntlet of fantastic forwards, I think this is just another final stage
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that Florida has to conquer. And they've shown they can hang with the best. So if they continue to play dominant, they'll have
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their first cup. Yeah. And and Jacob, I mean, like I say, the Oilers power
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play and penalty kill have been beyond elite throughout, throughout the playoffs. I mean, the penalty kill wasn't as
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dominant throughout the regular season, but it's been really good in the playoffs. And it's probably a big reason why
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they're here. I will let's stay dominant against the Panthers because the Panthers can roll out a pretty good two units too
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Yeah, I look at the Panthers and I see them more as like that physical playing down low kind of team and you look at the
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their previous opponents and a lot of them were a lot of cycling where the Panthers their power play has a lot of like
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down low hard for checking like he got Bennett Reinhardt. You got like Matthew Chuck, obviously. And so they're going
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to carry the puck down low, they're going to get in front of the net, where you look at Vancouver and Dallas and LA and
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they're kind of let the defenseman quarterback it and move the puck around. So it's going to be very different kind
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of opponent for them on the special teams. But I do think that the Oilers PK has just been fantastic. And when you look at
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the power play, I mean, their power play has been one of the best in the league and it wasn't even that good against Dallas
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they didn't convert too often. But they're still running it. I think it's 37% at this point, and their penalty kill is like
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94%. So they're first in the playoffs in both
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