Oilered

 The Blob has long maintained the Stanley Cup Final is the best of all Finals, because you JUST NEVER KNOW. A three-games-to-none lead in the best-of-seven? Ha! Nothing. A 3-0 lead at home in Game Four?

Ha! A cruel hoax.

And so here came the defending Cup champion Florida Panthers last night, fresh off a 6-1 lamination in Game 3 in which they both beat the Edmonton Oilers and beat them up, just like the latter-day Broad Street Bullies they are. And here they were up 3-0 after a period in Game 4, and, hey, boys, let's break out the good stuff, 'cause we're about to have a 3-1 stranglehold on the series and it's time to get good and oiled.

Instead ...

Well. Instead, in true you-just-never-know style, they got Oilered.

Because bang, bang, bang, bang, Edmonton put four in a row in the basket, and the Oilers led 4-3, and do-you-believe-in-miracles and all that. And then it was do-you-believe-in-miracles again as San Reinhart, with 20 seconds left in regulation, finally snuck the biscuit past Oilers' goalie Calvin Pickard -- who came on after Stuart Skinner gave up those three first-period goals, and who basically went Full Ken Dryden on the Panthers thereafter.

So it was 4-4, and on to overtime they went.

And then Leon Draisaitl lit the lamp in OT, his 11th goal of the 2025 playoffs and a record fourth overtime winner. And Edmonton had a series-tying W no one had seen the like of in 106 years.

Yes, that's right, boys and girls. Last time a team a team rallied from a deficit of at least three goals to win a Stanley Cup Final, the year was 1919, before F. Scott Fitzgerald invented the Jazz Age. The Montreal Canadians pulled it off, also in overtime, against the Seattle Metropolitans.

The Seattle Metropolitans! Man, it's been ages since I saw anyone rocking Seattle Metropolitans gear.

At any rate, it's back to Edmonton for Game 5, and, Stanley being Stanley, you know what that probably means: The South Beach Bullies will rise again, win in overtime (because why not?), and head back to their home base with a chance to wrap it up in six games.

Either that, or Calvin Pickard will go both Full Ken Dryden and, I don't know, Full Gump Worsley maybe, and Leon Draisaitl will score two overtime goals. And it'll the Oilers who will be one win away.

I mean, this is Stanley. Could happen, right?