Stanley Cup Final blog: Evan Rodrigues

Florida Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2025 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.

In his third entry, Rodrigues talks about the Panthers pulling even in the series with their 5-4 double-overtime win in Game 2, how they remained positive during intermissions and getting ready for Game 3 at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on Monday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

When Corey Perry scored that game-tying goal late in the third period for the Oilers, a lot of guys in our room were up. It was another overtime game. You just go out there; you can’t feel sorry for yourself. That’s the worst thing you can do, and we believed we were the better team for the most part. So, you just pick yourself back up and you go out there and you try to be the difference-maker. You stick together. You don’t get quiet. You pick each other up and just get back after it.

Overtime can be tough, but I think for us, we’ve played a certain style of game the whole season, all of last season and for the guys who were here before that, and it’s just committing to that. When you do something over and over again, it almost becomes muscle memory and to a certain extent we just continue to play our game. We continue to do what we think makes us successful. When the legs are starting to burn and it starts to become a mental and physical grind, your body knows what to do and I think that’s kind of what we did in the overtime.

When I blocked that shot by Evan Bouchard in the third period, it’s like I said Friday morning -- it’s the Final. You get in front of it and you wear the bumps and bruises. You give it all it takes. That’s what I tried to do.

Brad Marchand had two big goals, and he's not shy of the moment. He’s fit in seamlessly. He’s really, since the playoffs started, just become one of us. It almost happened overnight. He was still learning our game a little bit in the regular season but once the playoffs hit, he became one of us. He understands how we play and he’s doing all the little things and coming up big when he has those moments.

Right now, I think we’re obviously happy we won Game 2, but you have to turn the page. The recovery is so important and getting mentally ready for Game 3 is what we need to do.

As far as the long travel back to Florida, we did it last year, right? Recovery is probably the most important thing right now. You have to move past this game and start focusing on all the little things you need to do to get yourself in the best spot to play Game 3.

We have two days before we play again, but whenever we have to play we’ll be ready and they’re going to do the same. You just have to really focus and do all the little things to get yourself as ready and prepared as you can be.