The Florida Panthers have lost two straight in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Now Oliver Ekman-Larsson is being blamed for his actions in the last match.
“If I’m his teammate, I’ll start fighting there,” writes one user.
The Florida Panthers are in the Stanley Cup Finals for the second consecutive season, and for a long time it looked like they would easily win their very first NHL title. The Panthers won the first three games of the series, and thus had the chance to sweep the Edmonton Oilers, led by Connor McDavid.
Lost two straight
But in games four and five, Connor McDavid has played in a somewhat historic way. He scored four points in this weekend’s game, which Edmonton won by a whopping 8-1, and four more points in game five. The Oilers may still trail the series at 2-3, and thus remain just one loss away from elimination, but everyone agrees that the momentum is now in Edmonton’s favor.
Connor McDavid became the first player in NHL history to score four points in two consecutive Finals games, scoring the final goal of the game in Game 5 earlier this week. Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk did a historic job clearing the puck from the goal line when Florida had picked its goaltender, but the puck went only to McDavid who tied the game in the open goal.
Great criticism
But afterwards, much of the talk was about Oliver Ekman-Larsson. The Swedish star back has had a big revenge this season, when he played big for Florida. But when McDavid scored in the open box, the Swede seemed to give up completely, while his teammate brilliantly saved the puck, which gave Connor McDavid a completely open position. Criticism of Ekman-Larsson has been great on social media.
Some even say that he deserves to be poked for showing so little will, in such an important situation.
“If I’m Matthew Tkachuk, I’ll start fighting with ‘OEL’ there”‚ writes one user with a tweet that has been viewed a million(!) times.
“OEL just cruises around while Tkachuk makes a flying save to keep Florida in the game. Tkachuk is really making an effort not to start fighting with him there,” writes another.
“OEL just gives up. The Stanley Cup is in the building, no big deal…”, writes another, ironically.
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