Table of Contents

1 The Leadup
2 29 Players Return from Last Year
- 2.1 Edmonton Oilers
- 2.2 Florida Panthers
3 McDavid & Draisaitl for Oilers vs. Barkov & Reinhart for Panthers
4 Goal-Scoring from the Oilers’ “Other” Core Players
5 Depth Scoring
6 Stuart Skinner’s Resurgence for the Oilers
7 The Canadian Drought
8 What Would a Stanley Cup Do for McDavid?
9 Leon Draisaitl’s Possible Redemption
10 Panthers Playing Free of Pressure

The Leadup

Last year’s Stanley Cup Final was an instant classic that was one of the best Finals in league history. It was the definition of a rollercoaster, where the Florida Panthers won the first three games of the series by a combined score of 11-4. After that, the Edmonton Oilers came all the way back to force a Game 7.

Winning the next three games, 18-5 on aggregate, poised to be the 5th team in NHL history to complete a reverse sweep, and only the second to do so in the Finals, joining the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs. However, the Panthers put on a defensive masterclass in a 2-1 win to finally secure their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

In the time from October to now, both teams had to fight through adversity that they have faced throughout the season, and now, they are arguably deeper teams than what many have seen from last year’s editions of the teams. The Oilers are looking to get the first Stanley Cup out of this core to cash in on what could be their last great chance, while the Panthers are looking to turn what is already a Cup contender into a dynasty.

29 Players Return from Last Year

One of the best parts about this rematch is that there is no need for the two of them to take time to get used to each other because they already are used to seeing one another. They’ve battled each other last year, and had two tight battles in the regular season. Both teams are highly motivated to win, and this match up is rife with storylines given the history of these two teams.

In total, out of the 46 players from last year’s combined rosters, 30 return for this year’s edition, though technically that number is 28 because Zach Hyman is out for the rest of the playoffs with wrist surgery and Jonah Gadjovich, who is on the Panthers roster both this year and last year, didn’t play a game in the Finals last year. Not only are the superstars returning to the team, but familiar depth players have history with one another. And the new faces will only add more fuel to this matchup, including a trio of former Boston Bruins teammates: The Panthers’ Brad Marchand and AJ Greer, and the Oilers’ Trent Frederic.

Edmonton Oilers

	Forwards	Defensemen	Goaltenders
On 2024 & 2025 Rosters	Connor Brown Leon Draisaitl Adam Henrique Zach Hyman* Mattias Janmark Evander Kane Connor McDavid Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Corey Perry Derek Ryan**	Evan Bouchard Mattias Ekholm Brett Kulak Darnell Nurse	Calvin Pickard*** Stuart Skinner
On 2025 Roster only	Viktor Arvidsson Trent Frederic Kasperi Kapanen Vasily Podkolzin Jeff Skinner	Josh Brown Ty Emberson John Klingberg Troy Stecher Jake Walman
On 2024 Roster only	Sam Carrick Warren Foegele Dylan Holloway Ryan McLeod	Philip Broberg Cody Ceci Vincent Desharnais

*Out for the 2025 Finals

**Hasn’t played in the 2025 Playoffs yet

***Serving as backup goaltender in both Finals

Florida Panthers

	Forwards	Defensemen	Goaltenders
On 2024 & 2025 Rosters	Aleksander Barkov Sam Bennett Jonah Gadjovich Anton Lundell Eetu Luostarinen Sam Reinhart Evan Rodrigues Matthew Tkachuk Carter Verhaeghe	Aaron Ekblad Gustav Forsling Dmitry Kulikov Niko Mikkola	Sergei Bobrovsky
On 2025 Roster only	Jesper Boqvist AJ Greer Brad Marchand Tomáš Nosek Mackie Samoskevich Nico Sturm	Uvis Balinskis Seth Jones Nate Schmidt	Vitek Vanecek
On 2024 Roster only	Nick Cousins Ryan Lomberg Steven Lorentz Kyle Okposo Kevin Stenlund Vladimir Tarasenko	Oliver Ekman-Larsson Brandon Montour	Spencer Knight* Anthony Stolarz***

*Did not play in the 2024 Finals

**Serving as backup in 2025 Finals

***Served as backup in 2024 Finals

McDavid & Draisaitl for Oilers vs. Barkov & Reinhart for Panthers

While it’s usually easier said than done, the obvious key for the Panthers is to hold off the Oilers’ two superstars. They unlock a new gear in the playoffs, and can singlehandedly win the Oilers games. It’s extremely rare that they both put up masterclasses and Edmonton still loses, so if their opponents shut them down (or, at the very least, contain them), the chances of winning are higher.

That’s what the Panthers did last year, putting Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart on Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. This was especially true on home ice when they dictated the matchups. It’s not exactly in the prettiest style throughout the series, but they blanked the Oilers off the goal-scoring sheet when McDavid was playing against the duo, and held them to just one goal with Draisaitl against them. To compare, McDavid was on the ice for seven goals when not matched up against Barkov and Reinhart, and Draisaitl was on for four.

Florida will need to put up that type of performance from their two defensive stalwarts, especially since they were first and second in Selke Trophy voting this year. McDavid and Draisaitl aren’t putting up the point totals that they were last season, but even for them still being dominant, the Panthers will still throw everything they’ve got at them.

However, Draisaitl is much healthier in this year’s edition compared to last year, so that may complicate things up for the Panthers. That injury forced the Oilers to play him next to McDavid to maximize offense, and it made the Oilers much easier to shut down. This time, they’ll be on separate lines, which will be a tougher challenge. Florida, however, is comfortable with their defensive system when putting their second and third lines out there.

Goal-Scoring from the Oilers’ “Other” Core Players

One of the problems the Oilers encountered last year is one of the reasons why they couldn’t get over the hump: their two other core forwards didn’t score enough goals. Between Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman, they combined for just three goals: Nugent-Hopkins had one goal in the Game 4 blowout win, while Hyman had a goal each in Games 5 and 6.

This time, “the Nuge” is coming into the Finals after a hot run in the Western Conference Final against the Dallas Stars. He was excellent in the first four games of that series, with two goals and nine points in that span. He’s the team’s Swiss Army knife, and if he can continue that type of play, that’s another scoring threat the Panthers have to key on.

That’s especially crucial, especially since Zach Hyman will miss the rest of the playoffs after undergoing wrist surgery. But it’s important to note that the Oilers took last year’s Finals to seven games, and they didn’t factor into a lot of goal-scoring. From an offensive standpoint, the Oilers would have needed more from their depth or both of Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman if they were to have pulled off the reverse sweep.

While Hyman is out for the rest of the playoffs, with the way Corey Perry has filled in admirably in his absence (and on the top power play in the games Hyman struggled with that unit), the task doesn’t seem all too difficult. Nugent-Hopkins’ performance last series can give Edmonton hope that he can deliver in the Finals.

Depth Scoring

The stars will get the attention, and rightfully so, the depth will be crucial throughout the Finals, and will dictate how this Finals will be decided. Both teams have gotten the most out of their depth so far in the playoffs, and it’s been playing a crucial role for how they’ve beat their opponents. However, the pressing question is: Which team’s depth will show up more?

The edge still goes to Florida, as the bottom two lines and the defensemen have combined for 32 goals, but the Oilers are not too far behind, as their bottom two lines and defensemen have combined for 30. The Panthers’ blueline has factored more to the advantage, as their defensemen have outscored the Oilers’ defensemen, 15-11.

The most impressive part of the offensive depth on the blueline is that it’s not one man doing the bulk of the damage, like what Evan Bouchard is with the Oilers. It’s a by-committee approach with the Panthers, where three defensemen each have three goals: Aaron Ekblad, Seth Jones, Nate Schmidt and Niko Mikkola, while Gustav Forsling, Dmitry Kulikov, and frequent seventh defenseman Uvis Balinskis each have one. By stark contrast, the Oilers have two from Darnell Nurse and one each from John Klingberg, Jake Walman and Brett Kulak.

However, the bottom six depth scoring has been much closer, as both teams each have 19 goals from their third and fourth lines. It’s of no surprise that the Cats’ third line of Eetu Luostarinen, Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand have the majority of those goals, as they have 13 of them, but after them, they don’t have a lot.

The Oilers, meanwhile, spread out their depth, including five goals from Connor Brown, four from Adam Henrique, and three from Mattias Janmark, and Trent Frederic, Viktor Arvidsson, Vasily Podkolzin and Jeff Skinner each have one. This is not counting Evander Kane’s five and Corey Perry’s seven, who would normally be depth players, but are on the top six, where they have thrived.

There are going to be games in which the stars on both teams cancel each other out, and it’s going to come down to which team’s depth players step up more. So far, both teams’ depth players have stepped up a ton.

Stuart Skinner’s Resurgence for the Oilers

Skinner’s play has been one of the hottest topics of the entire playoffs. He started the postseason on a terrible note, so much so that he lost the crease to backup netminder Calvin Pickard. It would have been likely that he would continue to sit on the bench had it not been for Pickard’s injury in Game 2 against Vegas. After he was caught way out of his crease in Reilly Smith’s game-winning goal with 0.4 seconds left in regulation, Skinner has rebounded and has been crucial for the team’s run to the Finals.

They both have different play styles in net. Pickard may not have the strongest form in net, but he can get the Oilers replacement level goaltending when they have to get wins on a consistent basis. Skinner is more unpredictable, as, at best, he can steal games on the way to winning a championship, but at the worst, he can cost his team games, and maybe even a series.

This has once again has showed in this year’s playoffs. In every game he’s won, he’s saved 11.51 goals above expected at 5-on-5, and has made several outstanding saves. In the four losses, however, that number falls to -4.97, and when he’s off his game, he usually goes around the crease and lets up soft goals go by him. It’s no secret that goalies usually play great in wins and bad in losses, but Skinner’s case is completely unpredictable.

The Canadian Drought

The last Canadian team to win a Stanley Cup was the 1993 Montreal Canadiens, defeating Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings in five games. The drought, as it currently stands, is at 32 years, and that will continue if the Oilers fall in this year’s Finals. In between the Canadiens’ Stanley Cup win and the Oilers making it to this year’s Final, seven Canadian teams have fallen in the Finals, including the Oilers last year:

1994: The Vancouver Canucks overcame a 3-1 series deficit to force Game 7, but fell to the New York Rangers, who broke their Stanley Cup drought that spanned 54 years, in the decisive game.
2004: The Calgary Flames were up 3-2 in their series against the Tampa Bay Lightning but ultimately fell in seven games.
2006: The Oilers rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force Game 7 before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes.
2007: The Ottawa Senators lost in five games to the Anaheim Ducks; at the time, it was the first time the Stanley Cup Final guaranteed a first-time champion since the Dallas Stars defeated the Buffalo Sabres in 1999.
2011: The Vancouver Canucks led 3-2 in the Finals to the Boston Bruins, but lost in seven games.
2021: The Montreal Canadiens lost decisively to the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games; this was Tampa Bay’s second consecutive Stanley Cup championship.
2024: The Oilers became just the third team in NHL history to force a Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final after trailing the series 3-0, but ultimately lost to the Florida Panthers despite outscoring them in the series 23-18, the first time this happened since 2019, when the St. Louis Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history despite getting outscored by the Bruins in the series.

To this date, the 2004 Flames remain the closest Canadian team to winning a Stanley Cup, as they were one win away from clinching the Cup and one goal away in Game 6 from doing so, along with two goals away in Game 7 from winning the Cup. Game 6 was also controversial as it appeared that Martin Gélinas redirected a puck towards the net that went in off his skate, and a review from a camera angle showed it crossing the goal line before Nikolai Khabibulin’s right pad kicked it out.

The counterargument from some, including Tampa Bay’s Tim Taylor, argued that the puck not only was knocked several inches above the goal line, but also was “kicked” by Gélinas. The officials never reviewed the play, but the ABC broadcast of Game 7 showed a CGI analysis of the play to explain the parallax angle, giving the illusion of a goal from one angle when the overhead simulation showed that the puck did not completely cross the line, upholding the call on the ice.

Martin St. Louis scored the winner 33 seconds into double overtime of that game, and Ruslan Fedotenko scored twice in the ensuing Game 7, but not before holding off a Flames push in the third.In both times when the Canucks lost in the Finals, a riot ensued after the loss. The 1994 Canucks won Games 5 and 6 by a combined score of 10-4 before dropping the deciding game. With Mark Messier scoring the eventual winner and becoming the first, and to this date, only, player to captain two different teams to a Stanley Cup after doing the same with the 1990 Oilers; Trevor Linden scored twice in Game 7.

Two hundred people were injured in the first riot, but 17 years later, in 2011, nearly 150 people were injured in the riot that followed the Canucks’ Game 7 loss to the Bruins, one critically and three seriously. The 2011 Final varied widely between the games played in Vancouver and those in Boston, as the Canucks won tight, low-scoring contests in their home games, winning their first three matches 1-0, 3-2, and 1-0. However, in Boston, the Bruins won in blowouts in their three home games, 8-1, 4-0, and 5-2. Unlike the first riot, the second one began before Game 7 was yet to be played, but most of the activity came right when the match ended.

Last year, McDavid became just the 6th player to be awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs despite being on the losing side of a Stanley Cup Final, the first time since Jean-Sébastien Giguère in 2003, and just the second skater to do so after Reggie Leach in 1976. The only other two teams in NHL history to erase a 3-0 series deficit in the Finals were the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1945 Detroit Red Wings. Coincidentally, in those two years, Toronto and Detroit faced each other in the Finals, with the Maple Leafs winning both times.

Because the 2021 Playoffs were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, that year’s Playoffs and Finals were impacted by cross-border travel restrictions that forced the league to temporarily realign their teams into four divisions with no conferences, and all seven Canadian teams were in one of the four divisions. As a consequence, the playoffs were a division-based format, with the four divisional playoff champions re-seeded by regular season points totals.

Had the playoffs been held under the current playoff format, not only would Montreal’s Finals match with the Lightning have been impossible since they compete in the Eastern Conference, but the Canadiens would have also missed the playoffs.

What Would a Stanley Cup Do for McDavid?

In recent NHL history, Stanley Cup Final rematches featured some of the greatest rosters constructed on one side, and a team led by a generational superstar and an all-time NHL great on the other. Connor McDavid is the third captain to earn a chance at revenge in a Finals rematch, with the other two being Wayne Gretzky and Sidney Crosby.

Gretzky was 24 years old when the free-flowing scoring led to a championship, and he wrapped up his first season as team captain. In the 1984 season, the Oilers recorded an NHL-record 446 goals, a record that still stands to this day. Paul Coffey and Jarri Kurri emerged as superstars in the months leading up to the Finals, with Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr, Glenn Anderson and Kevin Lowe, who emerged in different ways. The year before, they were swept by the New York Islanders’ dynasty, leading to the rise of the Oilers’ dynasty, and in turn, them knowing exactly what to expect from the Islanders, taking them out in five games.

When Crosby won his first Cup, he was just 21 years old. He and Evgeni Malkin fell at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings’ empire in 2008, one of the greatest teams ever assembled that has ran the league for well over a decade. To begin the rematch, Nicklas Lidström, Chris Osgood and co. blanked the Penguins in the first two games of the 2008 series, but the Pens pushed it to six games, and then later returned the favor with a seven-game series victory to take the rematch against the aging Red Wings.

McDavid’s case is much different than Gretzky’s and Crosby’s. He’s 28 years old, and the roster around him is the oldest in the league. His goal scoring is already on its decline, and there’s no telling how someone so explosive will adjust to any decline on speed. And then you get to the salary cap, where, despite the ceiling’s increase, he’ll get a heavy pay raise and take up the majority of the Oilers’ cap room.

That makes last year’s Finals loss not a learning experience, but rather a soul-crushing missed opportunity. This is the Oilers’ last great shot with this core, and his best chance to avoid the label of being the best player to never win a Stanley Cup.

Leon Draisaitl’s Possible Redemption

From a box score perspective, Draisaitl no-showed in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, as he had just three assists. For someone who is the 5th-most prolific per-game scorer in playoff history, that’s the common narrative, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Like Matthew Tkachuk the year before, Draisaitl entered the Finals on an absolute tear, but was hampered with injuries, and it was clear something was not right with him. Forces outside of his control severely limited his production in the Finals, but it’s fair for people to want more out of him instead of three assists and no goals in seven games.

But it’s also fair to wonder: If he wasn’t ravaged by injuries, would he have put up something of his usual output and lead the way for the Oilers to steal the series? That question is, however, only speculation, as nobody would ever know the answer to that question. Now, Draisaitl is fully healthy ahead of this rematch, along with his linemate, Evander Kane, who missed the final five games of the Finals to injury to a sports hernia. If he and Kane are on their game at the right time, the Oilers have an answer for the Tkachuk line.

Draisaitl is second to only McDavid for the points leaderboard, but he feels like he’s due for a breakout performance, as his 16.7 shooting percentage is just down five percentage points from his regular season rate and 1.5% from his career playoff rate. Now, a healthy and fully motivated Draisaitl can be challenging for the Panthers, as they just barley survived the Oilers despite his struggles. Barring another injury, Florida must plan to slow him down from the get-go.

Panthers Playing Free of Pressure

The Panthers’ Stanley Cup championship last year frees them of any pressure entering the Finals this year. Most of the championship core is returning to this year’s edition of the Cats, and if the first three rounds showed anything, it is that they’re playing comfortably. But appearances on the surface can be extremely deceiving, and most of the pressure from the Oilers doesn’t take away from the Panthers feeling pressure themselves.

Florida is a slightly older team compared to last year’s squad, and while they’re not going to be dealing with a major cap crunch this summer, they are faced with dilemmas with two of their big key players: Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad, who will both be free agents this summer. Bennett is a hard-nosed player with a knack for getting to the net-front and dealing heavy hits, while Ekblad developed into a two-way presence and a complete defenseman.

Even if they stay around on team-friendly deals, the concern is that they are both injury prone players who have played three consecutive Finals. While Aleksander Barkov is the best defensive forward in the league, his 2024 season was the first time since 2019 that he has played over 70 games in a regular season, and the first time he was on a pace to play that many games since 2021, when he played 50 of 56 games in the COVID-shortened season, equating to a 73-game pace in an 82-game regular season.

The extra playoff games don’t help matters either, especially not for Sergei Bobrovsky, who, while playing some of the best playoff hockey he’s ever played with the Panthers, is 36 years old, and Spencer Knight, who was previously touted as the heir apparent to the crease, was dealt to Chicago in the Seth Jones trade.

And while the Panthers might be thinking of potential dynasty status, there are dangers to wanting to keep the band around, because a championship core can quickly go stale. Every team goes through this, and both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning, who both won back-to-back Cups, were not spared from this fate. Despite how easy as it may look, it is tough going to the Stanley Cup Final, let alone do it three times in a row, and no team has made it four times in a row since the New York Islanders’ dynasty of the early 80s, and that was in a time when the league was much smaller.

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