2024 Stanley Cup Final Preview

Sixteen teams have entered the Stanley Cup Playoffs; only two remain.

The Florida Panthers have returned to the Final for a second consecutive year to go for a long-awaited championship, looking to win it all for the first time in their 31-year history. They made it twice before, getting swept in 1996 to the Colorado Avalanche and beaten in five games by the Vegas Golden Knights last year.

The Edmonton Oilers have not won it all since 1990 behind the heroics of Mark Messier and Bill Ranford, though they have made it to this stage as the first 8th-seeded team to make the Final in 2006, pushing the Carolina Hurricanes to seven games before eventually falling.

The Panthers got by the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers on the way here, beating Vezina-caliber goaltender after Vezina-caliber goaltender on the way to here—Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jeremy Swayman, and Igor Shesterkin. They are deep, loaded, and have a combination of superstar talent and tremendous physicality. They were underdogs last season, but this year they have taken the crown as the class of the Eastern Conference and even that conference’s villain. This mindset is fine with former Calgary Flames Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett, and even head coach Paul Maurice doesn’t mind, if it means that he gets hockey’s ultimate prize in his 28-year coaching career.

The Oilers eliminated the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the third straight year, but they were not a surefire pick to make it to the Finals given they had to get by the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars, and especially given that they started the season 2-9-1 and fired Jay Woodcroft 13 games into the season. The many challenges that they had on their path to this point found them new ways to win games: A top-heavy attack is nothing new, but they now know how to win tight, low-scoring games thanks to their defensive efforts along with the coaching of Kris Knoblauch and former Oilers great Paul Coffey.

Head-to-Head

The last time both teams met, the Oilers were around .500 and the Panthers were waiting to get both Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour back from the IR because of offseason surgeries. This was six months ago—they were very different teams back then and a lot has changed since.

In the first meeting in November, the Panthers routed the Oilers 5-1 behind multi-point performances of Niko Mikkola and Kevin Stenlund of all people. In the second one, the Oilers made it tight thanks to two Connor McDavid goals, but a Carter Verhaeghe hat trick was the difference as the Panthers won 5-3 in the December matchup. Verhaeghe had five points in the two games. Also of note is that Oilers backup Calvin Pickard started both games.

Offense

Florida Panthers

Aleksander Barkov took the backseat offensively to Matthew Tkachuk in last year’s playoffs, but this year he leads the charge. Sam Reinhart had 57 goals during the regular season, and while his points per game pace is down from the regular season in the playoffs, he still put up eight goals on the way to the Final, including an overtime blast in Game 4 against the Rangers. His eight goals are second on teh team to Verhaeghe, who has nine, and already has five playoff overtime goals, tied for third all-time, and has a knack for scoring in the clutch.

Tkachuk is the unquestioned leader of the second line, being a complete player on every facet of the game, though Sam Bennett has sneakily added six goals and 10 points of his own in 12 games played. The chemistry of the two has only grown dating back to their Calgary days, and Bennett’s growing confidence shooting the puck allowed Maurice to move Verhaeghe to the top line and Evan Rodrigues to their line. Four of Bennett’s six goals came in the Eastern Conference Final.

Along the bottom six, Anton Lundell has been a revelation, with the former first round pick tallying 12 points. Vladimir Tarasenko, who won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues five years ago, has the capability to find his groove on the right line, and it can be on the third line with Lundell and towering penalty killer Eetu Luostarinen.

Edmonton Oilers

The largest show for the Oilers is a historically dominant power play that overcame a brief skid to score on four of their last five attempts in their last two games against the Stars. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl need no introduction. McDavid is the unquestioned best player in the league, and his speed has made the two best penalty kills in the Western Conference look silly. Draisaitl arguably has the most complete offensive game in the NHL.

Evan Bouchard has emerged into an elite offensive defenseman behind his six goals and 27 points. It says something when he is the third-fastest defenseman to 50 career playoff points and one of the two to reach that mark faster than him is Bobby Orr. Zach Hyman is the Oilers’ best slot man since Glenn Anderson, with his 14 goals in the playoffs pacing the entire league. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and his nine power play points are lost in the mix, which shows how dangerous this unit is. Of the five men on the top power play, all but Hyman would lead the Panthers in points.

They have found contributors up and down the lineup against the Stars, especially on both ends of the ice, though it should also be noted that there is a 10-point drop-off from Hyman to the 6th-leading scorer on the Oilers, Evander Kane. With Warren Foegele as a healthy scratch after a 20-goal regular season, Kane has added pressure on stepping up after a scoreless Western Conference Final. Adam Henrique was up to the task with three points in four games after he returned from an injury that kept him out for nearly all of the second round. If the veterans develop chemistry with one another, it can go a long way towards balancing this attack.

Defense

Florida Panthers

The Panthers were tied with the Winnipeg Jets as the stingiest team of the regular season, but unlike the Jets, their defensive excellence continued to the summer. They allowed the fewest shots and goals per game of any team that advanced to the second round. The man leading the charge is two-time Selke Trophy winner Barkov, having controlled nearly 54% of expected goals against Nikita Kucherov and David Pastrnak, and more than 66% against Mika Zibanejad. It doesn’t account for the everyday highlight-reel flashiness that McDavid shows, and while McDavid cannot be contained, Barkov and Reinhart should at least slow him down.

Along the blueline, Gustav Forsling is proving that he has arguably the best contract in the NHL. He is a +11 with 11 points in 17 games, and he and Aaron Ekblad have logged the toughest minutes for the team. Their 48 defensive zone starts are second to just Esa Lindell and Chris Tanev this postseason, and have paced the defense in scoring chances (57.43%) and expected goals (51.27%).

The offensive-minded Brandon Montour and the heavy-hitting Niko Mikkola complete a strong top four core, while Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitry Kulikov have meshed nicely together on the third pairing to the tune of 53.85% control of high-danger chances. The challenge is to stay out of the box. While they have killed off an impressive 88.2% of their penalties in the playoffs, that doesn’t matter when they go up against the most lethal power play in the league, and it doesn’t help that they were the most penalized team in the league during the regular season.

Edmonton Oilers

The defense has come into its own ever since Knoblauch and Coffey were hired by the organization. They were 5th in scoring defense after the coaching change and have allowed just 2.61 goals per game in the playoffs. They completely shut down the Stars in the latter three games of that series, allowing only four goals. Defense was practically nonexistent under Woodcroft and Dave Tippett; now they have one of the stingiest units in the entire league.

This is especially true on the penalty kill, where they have not allowed a goal on their last 28 penalties. It started back in the second round, and the longer it goes, the more that their opponents are getting frustrated trying to solve the PK. If the Oilers can shut down the Panthers’ power play, Florida could be frustrated overthinking not only on their man advantage but perhaps even their penalty kill too.

While that department for the Oilers has been stellar, what about the defense at five-on-five? The underlying numbers when Mattias Ekholm and Bouchard are off the ice aren’t all that good. With them on the ice, they control more than 57% of chances, high-danger chances, and expected goals. With them on the bench, that number dips to below 43% on every category.

While it is easy to single out Darnell Nurse based on his postseason struggles, his metrics suggest that he is rather snakebitten and been on the bad end of puck luck, but that needs to change against the deep Panthers team. However, things have been more encouraging for Nurse ever since he was paired with Brett Kulak.

Goaltending

Unsurprisingly, both teams are riding hot goaltending. While Sergei Bobrovsky made that one iconic save against the Lightning, his stats against them were a one-off compared to against the Bruins and Rangers. In those two rounds, he posted a 1.96 GAA and a .914 save percentage. It’s not the same level of dominance he had last season, but the narrative that he doesn’t show up in the playoffs is gone.

Opposite him is Stuart Skinner, who looked like he was going to have another playoff collapse when he lost the crease to Calvin Pickard against the Canucks. Knoblauch went back to Skinner for a pair of elimination games after the Oilers were behind 3-2 in the series, and he has not looked back. Ever since, he went 6-2 with a 1.81 GAA and a .919 save percentage. He’s not the goaltender that Bobrovsky is, but if he can continue to play like he did in that stretch and cut the angles, that may not matter.

X-Factors

Tkachuk and Bennett have taken most of the headlines come playoff time for very good reason. They are agitators, tending to extend puck possession to open up play, lining up unsuspecting defensemen and cycle the puck before they find the open man. When Rodrigues joined their line, the trio’s forecheck became a lot more overwhelming, outscoring the Rangers 3-1 and out-chancing them at five-on-five 34-9.

Ekholm and Bouchard have not stopped this postseason for the Oilers, as they’re a combined +22. But when they’re not on the ice, the Oilers have been overwhelmed to the tune of getting outscored 25-13 at five-on-five. The rest of the revamped defense needs to step up, especially against the Tkachuk line, or they’re in trouble.

Injuries

Neither team is heading into the Finals with any major injury listings. However, they are banged up after three playoff series, but it’s all hands on deck for both sides now. Evander Kane sat for the third period of Game 6 against Dallas after he threw a hit and tweaked something, and though they haven’t said anything about his injury, he did say publicly that he is dealing with a sports hernia. The only other injury of note is depth defenseman Troy Stecher, who is dealing with an ankle injury and has not played in the playoffs and only dressed for the Oilers in seven regular season games this season after being acquired from the former Arizona Coyotes.

Storylines

The Panthers are the first runner-up to make it back to the Stanley Cup Final since the Pittsburgh Penguins won it all in 2009. From one perspective, they are more battle tested to make it back to the Final, but on the other, should they lose, it may be too much to bear, especially given that a lot of contracts set to expire in a matter of weeks, including those of Reinhart, Montour, and Lundell. This season is their best chance to win the Cup.

A lot of media pressure is on the Oilers to perform this season. Both Draisaitl and Bouchard are due for heavy pay raises that will take up at least $20 million of the cap space, so McDavid is running out of time to win a Cup with the Oilers. That’s also not mentioning about the Canadian team drought, as it is counting for 31 years, and will be brought up every season until it ends. McDavid has faced scrutiny through his career, though with how he raised the confidence of Nurse and Skinner, it showed his evolution as a team leader, but the toughest task is to block the outside noise in the buildup to the Final.

Interestingly, the top four picks from the 2014 NHL Entry Draft are playing in the Final—Ekblad, Reinhart, and Bennett were taken first, second, and fourth overall by the Panthers, Buffalo Sabres, and Flames, and are all on the Panthers now, while Draisaitl was drafted third by the Oilers. This year’s Stanley Cup Final also has the largest coaching experience disparity in history, with Maurice having coached 1,848 career regular season games, while Knoblauch having coached 69.

The distance between the two teams in the Finals matchup is 2,541 miles (4,089.3 kilometers), which is the longest distance in history between Finals opponents, so jet lag could be a heavy factor into this knowing that both teams will have to take planes between Edmonton and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.

Projected Lineups

Florida Panthers

Edmonton Oilers

Schedule

• Game 1: Saturday, June 8 at Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL
• Game 2: Monday, June 10 at Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL
• Game 3: Thursday, June 13 at Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB
• Game 4: Saturday, June 15 at Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB
• Game 5: Tuesday, June 18 at Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL*
• Game 6: Friday, June 21 at Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB*
• Game 7: Monday, June 24 at Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL*

*if necessary
Every game will begin at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT.

Each game will be telecast on ABC for USA markets and available on ESPN+ for streaming. CBC and Sportsnet will televise to Canadian markets in the English language, while the French-language broadcast will be on TVA Sports.