The Florida Panthers bounced back in a big way Saturday night, defeating the Edmonton Oilers 5–2 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final to take a 3–2 series lead and move within a single win of their second straight NHL championship.
Just two nights after squandering a three-goal lead at home in Game 4, Florida stormed into Rogers Place in Edmonton and dominated from start to finish, led by veteran forward Brad Marchand’s two-goal performance.
Marchand, acquired at the trade deadline, continues to be Florida’s playoff sparkplug. His sixth goal of the series came midway through the opening period, a coast-to-coast solo effort that broke the ice and gave the Panthers a 1–0 lead.
Before the first intermission, Sam Bennett capitalized on a neutral-zone turnover to make it 2–0. Bennett, who now leads all playoff scorers with 15 goals, has been instrumental alongside Marchand in Florida’s run.
Following a scoreless second period, Marchand struck again early in the third, this time on a breakaway, pushing the lead to 3–0 and notching his 10th goal of the 2025 playoffs. The 37-year-old has now joined elite company, becoming the first player since Mario Lemieux to score five or more goals in two separate Stanley Cup Final series. His six goals in this year’s Final place him sixth in all-time scoring for the championship round during the expansion era.
Edmonton showed signs of life as superstar Connor McDavid scored from a tight angle, cutting the deficit to 3–1. But Florida responded quickly. Sam Reinhart fired a wrist shot through traffic to make it 4–1, followed later by Eetu Luostarinen’s empty-netter to seal the win.
Corey Perry added a late goal for Edmonton, but it wasn’t enough.
Florida now returns home to Sunrise, Florida, for Game 6 on Tuesday, with a chance to clinch the Cup in front of their fans at Amerant Bank Arena. Should they succeed, they’ll become the first team to win back-to-back Stanley Cups since the Tampa Bay Lightning did it in 2020 and 2021.
For the Oilers, it’s do-or-die. They’ll need to find a way to contain Florida’s dominant duo of Marchand and Bennett—who have each scored at least five goals in the Final, a feat not achieved by teammates in over 50 years. The Oilers also hope to break Canada’s decades-long championship drought, with the Montreal Canadiens still standing as the last Canadian team to lift the Cup back in 1993.
The stage is set for a high-stakes showdown in Game 6.