Good morning. I’m Tyler Lauletta, still filling in for your usual host, Dan Gartland. If you’re reading this, it means the higher-ups haven’t yet discovered I am three toddlers in a trench coat typing away at a keyboard. We call that a win in the business. To the newsletter.

In today’s SI:AM: 

⛳Scottie Scheffler’s struggles
🏌️U.S. Open first round superlatives
🏈New era in Dallas

The Oilers rage against the dying of the light

The Edmonton Oilers are not going down without a fight.

Things looked bleak at the first intermission of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers on Thursday night. The Oilers, already trailing 2–1 in the series, were down 3–0, showing very few signs of life. After the 6–1 drubbing they took in Game 3, it felt like a Stanley Cup Final that had started with a ton of promise for Edmonton might be heading towards an ending that was as disappointing as it was underwhelming.

But rather than roll over, the Oilers found something between the first and second periods, storming back with three goals of their own to tie up the game heading into the third. After taking the lead with just over six minutes to play, Edmonton needed to lock down on defense and they’d be heading back home with the series tied 2–2.

It was never going to be that easy, though. With just 20 seconds left on the clock, the Panthers' Sam Reinhart found the back of the net, pushing the Oilers right back to the brink.

With the emotional roller coaster of the game taking another gut-lurching jump, the Oilers were once again left with the only two options there ever really are when you get down to it: roll over or keep pushing.

In the extra period, both teams had their chances. Calvin Pickard, who took over in net for the Oilers for Stuart Skinner after going down 3–0, saved the Oilers’ skin a few times, and Leon Draisaitl, once again, came through to end things for Edmonton. After taking advantage of some soft coverage following a line change, Draisaitl received the puck and flung it with one hand on the stick toward the net. After journeying between the legs of two different Panthers, the shot went in for the game-winning goal.

Some truisms in sports will make you roll your eyes—just put the puck on the net and good things can happen—but moments like Draisaitl’s goal are why those mantras get beaten into the ground.

It was not pretty, and it was not planned. But the goal counted, and it was enough to even the series for the Oilers.

“It’s just the trust that we have,” Draisaitl told TNT after the game of his team’s never-say-die attitude. “Once we find our legs, once we find our game, we know how good we can be, and we continue to push through whatever adversity is coming. Once we get over that hump and to the other side of it we know our best game is hard to play against. Obviously, we’d like to start that a little sooner.”

For Draisaitl, the goal was extra sweet. Earlier in the day, it was announced that he had lost the Hart Trophy to Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck. Draisaitl would tell you that winning or losing an MVP award was of no consequence compared to his team’s quest for the Cup, and he would pass every lie detector test. But no matter how hard he pushed it to the back of his head, the Great One insisted it was still rattling around somewhere.

“Athletes, especially great athletes, have a lot of pride,” Wayne Gretzky said at the TNT desk after the game. “He’s thinking about only winning the Stanley Cup, but when he didn’t win that award today, he was like, ‘Okay I’m going to get on my horse today, show people how good I am.’”

Draisaitl did just that, putting away his fourth overtime goal of this postseason, and setting a record in the process. With his game-winner, the Oilers became the seventh team in NHL history to win a game in the Stanley Cup Final after trailing by three goals, and the first to do it in nearly two decades.

The Stanley Cup Final is now a three-game series that’s heading back to Edmonton. Through four games, we’ve already been blessed with three overtime thrillers, two of the latest game-tying goals in Stanley Cup Final history, and one blowout that brought out the animosity between both teams, which they'll have to put aside in an eventual handshake line.

Playoff hockey is like nothing else on Earth.

The best of Sports Illustrated

The top five…

…things I saw in the first round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.

5. Shane Lowry holes out for eagle….and still finishes his round nine over.
4. He also got in a fight with a microphone.
3. You wanted carnage? Here’s the best golfer alive taking his frustrations out on the fairway.
2. Brooks Koepka is mad everyone keeps telling him about his awesome quote from a few years ago.
1. Even Patrick Reed couldn’t believe his albatross actually went in.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Game 4 Was an Oilers Classic.

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