Florida Panthers keep beating on Edmonton Oilers despite injuries

EDMONTON — It doesn’t matter how their own season has gone this year, the Florida Panthers weren’t going to miss out on a chance to cause the Edmonton Oilers further misery.

Sergei Bobrovsky recorded 21 saves to earn his fourth shutout of the season and 53rd of his career as the Panthers continued to plague Edmonton, emerging with a 4-0 victory over the Oilers on Thursday in a rematch of the last two Stanley Cup finals — both won by Florida.

“We all remember each other very well during the two years we’ve been playing against each other and spending a lot of time in this building, so being back gives you a little extra motivation and extra boost,” said Anton Lundell, one of Florida’s goal scorers.

Cole Reinhardt, A.J. Greer and Carter Verhaeghe had the other goals for the injury-riddled Panthers (34-31-3), who snapped a two-game losing skid.

Sam Bennett, Evan Rodrigues and Michael Benning had two assists each.

Benning, taken by Florida in the fourth round (95th overall) of the 2020 Entry Draft, was playing in just his fourth career NHL game. The 24-year-old Edmonton-area native defenceman already has three points.

“It was a hard and simple game, we stuck to our strengths,” he said. “I’ve only been here a short time, but it was fun to be a part of it and keep it going. A little extra excitement, I got some friends and family in the building, which is awesome.”

The Panthers are almost certain to miss the playoffs and a chance to defend their back-to-back titles.

“I think both teams have suffered the same challenges over the last three years,” said Florida head coach Paul Maurice. “We’ve all had long runs, even when we went to the (2022-23) final, they went to the conference final that year.

“Finding that juice in the regular season is a real, real challenge probably right now more so for us than them with the players that are out, and also we are so far out of the playoffs now. But I think we had the juice tonight and had the advantage there.”

Florida has been hit hard by injuries all season long with the most man-games lost in the league including many lengthy ones to key players. Among those out of the lineup on Thursday were Aleksander Barkov, Brad Marchand and Sam Reinhart. Only defenceman Gustav Forsling has managed to appear in all 68 games this season.

On the Oilers side of the ledger, it was not only a kick in the teeth to suffer another painful loss to the Panthers, but it comes at a costly time in the season with their own playoff fate up in the air.

“You’d be lying if you said it didn’t mean a little more,” said Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “But at the same time, our mindset was we need two points at this time of year and where we are in the standings and pushing for the playoffs.

“It obviously goes without saying that there’s lots of history there. It’s a frustrating night.”

The Oilers (34-27-9) saw a two-game winning streak halted and missed out on an opportunity to move ahead of the idle Anaheim Ducks into first in the Pacific Division.

“Look, everyone comes to the rink with the right mindset,” said veteran Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse. “This team, we want to win. Every day you come to the rink, you want to win. You want to compete.

“You want to beat whoever’s on the other side, whether it’s the Florida Panthers or the Calgary Flames. It doesn’t matter.”

The Oilers are now 1-9-2 when they have had the opportunity to win three games in a row and fell to 0-10-2 this season when Connor McDavid fails to collect a point.

Edmonton was still without star forward Leon Draisaitl, out for the rest of the regular season with a lower-body injury.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2026.

Shane Jones, The Canadian Press