The Edmonton Oilers performed a real miracle in the Cup finals Stanley. The team with the best hockey player on the planet, Connor McDavid, was able to do what only a few believed in — they bounced back from 0-3 in the series against the Florida Panthers. Now the winner of the historic trophy will be determined in the seventh game, and the Panthers are not seen as favorites on the eve of this meeting.
The situation in the decisive battle of the National Hockey League season has pushed the public to speculate about who really is the best player in this game. off. After the first three matches of the final series, perhaps the main contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy — the prize for the most valuable hockey player in the Stanley Cup — was Sergei Bobrovsky.
National Hockey League (NHL)25 June 2024 • start at 03:00Finished
FloridaUSA2 : 1
EdmontonCanada
04:27 • Carter Verhaeg (Evan Rodriguez, Anton Lundell)
35:11 • Sam Rinehart (Carter Verhaeg, Dmitry Kulikov)
06: 44 • Matthias Janmark-Nylen (Cody Ceci)
The only “competitor” for the Russian goalkeeper of “Florida” was his teammate and captain of the “Panthers” Alexander Barkov: during the entire playoffs, the Russian Finn phenomenally excluded Tampa superstar Nikita Kucherov, Boston’s main hope David Pastrnak, a couple of top players from the game. Rangers forwards Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, and then temporarily did the same with Leon Draisaitl's three in the finals. But most experts, journalists and experts recognized Bobrovsky as the player thanks to whom Florida reached the title of the main contender for the championship.
However, the last three matches completely changed the whole picture. No, Bobrovsky is still the real hero of Florida and the entire tournament, he deserves all the praise addressed to him, but from now on it is not the Russian who is recognized as the best player in the NHL playoffs. Connor McDavid is the hockey player with superhuman abilities who changed everything.
What Bobrovsky did cannot be compared with the successes of the star Canadian, who wrote a new chapter in the history of the league. McDavid only needed two matches (games 4 and 5 of the final series, in which he scored a total of 8 points) to become the sole leader of the race for Conn Smythe. McD is only the third player after the legendary Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux to score 40+ points in a single NHL playoff game — isn't that greatness?
What about Bobrovsky? In 23 matches of this playoffs, the Russian goalkeeper achieved 15 victories with a save percentage of 90.3%. This number was much higher before the last three games of the final series, in which the Florida goalkeeper allowed 12 goals on 58 shots — during this period he had only 79.3% of his shots saved. And no, blaming Bobrovsky for the Panthers' losses would be stupid and wrong. If you look at Edmonton’s goals in these matches, the Russian’s “role” in them will be negligible. Let's add to this the ugly play of Florida's field hockey players, who overnight seemed to have forgotten how to act effectively both in attack and especially in defense. But Bobrovsky stopped, as they say, dragging in critical situations — that’s a fact.
“He lost his confidence and composure. You can’t blame him for Edmonton’s goals, but Bob was never able to make a really big save. He allowed at least three goals in each of his last three games,” journalist Sean Roark rightly noted in his column on the NHL website.
At the same time, the North American press unanimously claims that Edmonton will win the series or lose, but Connor McDavid will take Conn Smythe. But it is journalists who determine the winner of the valuable award. Their general attitude convinces us that this issue has been resolved before the end of the playoffs. Let's add here the political issue. Of course, he plays far from the first roles in the NHL, but he still has his place. To hand over a “horse” to a Russian hockey player, when the entire NHL is openly eager for McDavid’s championship, means breaking all patterns.
Bobrovsky will be able to convince America only in one case — to play “to zero” in the decisive match of the final series. And that’s not a fact.
P.S. After the release of the material, it became known that Bobrovsky missed Florida’s training on the eve of the decisive match with Edmonton.