Beating Panthers in rematch won’t cure Oilers’ two-time Cup heartbreak

It’s an awful place to have to go, really, that one trip into Amerant Bank Arena that the Edmonton Oilers are forced to make each season. Not because of the Florida Panthers, so much, but more the PTSD of it all.

The sobering reminder that instead of being validated by having won a Stanley Cup or two — being able to say they have succeeded inside this fragile window that the Oilers reside in — it was in this very building where it ended both years.

Connor McDavid’s famous freak out. Zach Hyman’s promise: “We’ll be back. I know we will.”

The Carter Verhaeghe goal just 4:47 into Game 7 two springs ago, and Mattias Janmark’s rapid response. Sam Reinhart, going low glove on Stuart Skinner, and a bouncing puck in the slot that McDavid just could not corral…

It all happened here.

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And the worst part? They could beat the Panthers by 10 goals on Saturday and nobody on either side would have any illusions that revenge was exacted.

The big games are in the past, and Edmonton lost too many of them. History has been written, and as intriguing as this matchup is for the hockey world twice a season, for the Oilers it is just a reminder of their worst times, like the anniversary of putting the family dog to sleep.

Some anniversaries just go uncelebrated. If Edmonton had a choice, we suspect this would be one of those.

“It was a really emotional situation that we faced here last spring,” Connor Brown said last February, when he returned as an Oiler to the scene of the crime. “It’s not like you can just pretend like we weren’t here. Like what happened last time we were in this building didn’t happen.

“But I guess it’s more important how you process it. Using it as fuel, rather than dwelling on it.”

Brown lost patience, and left for New Jersey. So did Corey Perry, who is an L.A. King now.

But that night the Oilers lost 4-3, their fifth straight loss. Brown and Janmark each went minus-3, and afterwards, head coach Kris Knoblauch called out “a few passengers.”

“There were some guys that just didn’t put in the effort that we needed.”

It just wasn’t in them, a year ago at Amerant.

This season, both the Panthers (11-8-1) and Oilers (9-9-5) are muddling along, Florida having played in the last three Stanley Cup Finals, and Edmonton the last two.

They’re both trying to fire up the ol’ engine, though the Panthers’ injuries are far more debilitating, with Sasha Barkov out for the season and Matthew Tkachuk still a month away from returning.

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“There’s no hiding it — that’s the big man,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said when Barkov went down. “He’s such an important place in that locker room. What we’re going to get to experience now is you’ll get to know some of the other leaders that we have in our room. We’ll get to see other players.

“At the end of the day, I know there’s the idea of next-man-up, I get all that, but there’s not a next man for his skates.”

Florida is missing Barkov, Tkachuk, Dmitri Kulikov, Tomas Nosek, and Jonah Gadjovich. This week, Nosek’s replacement Cole Schwindt went down. Trusty centre Eetu Luostarinen is now week to week after suffering burns in a barbecuing accident, Maurice announced on Wednesday.

The Oilers are far healthier, with Zach Hyman coming back last weekend. They miss Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kasperi Kapanen, but the issues in Edmonton surround those Oilers who are on the ice, not those who aren’t.

In Buffalo Monday, when the Sabres scored an empty net goal to make it 5-1, Sabres analyst Rob Ray quipped: “Empty net for Edmonton… Yeah, it has been most of the night, so what’s the difference?”

Oof, even the Buffalo folks mock you when you lose to the Sabres.

Somehow, though, the losses at Amerant are the ones the Edmonton Oilers will never be able to shake.