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The Stanley Cup final begins Saturday at 8 p.m. ET when the Edmonton Oilers visit the Florida Panthers, marking Connor McDavid’s first appearance on the NHL’s biggest stage.
At the age of 27, the world’s best hockey player has already won three regular-season MVP awards and five scoring titles since joining the league nine years ago. But, until a couple of weeks ago, he’d never won a game past the second round of the playoffs. That changed as Edmonton defeated top-seeded Dallas in the Western Conference final to give McDavid his best chance yet to capture the Stanley Cup.
Speaking of droughts: as you may have heard, no Canadian-based team has won the best trophy in sports since Patrick Roy’s Montreal Canadiens in 1993 (four years before McDavid was born). A Canadian club has played in the Stanley Cup final six times since then, including Edmonton in 2006. But the Oilers are still looking for their first title since 1990 — two years after they traded Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles.
The Panthers can relate. They’re trying to win the first championship in the history of the franchise, which dates back to 1993. Florida’s rat-infested run to the Cup final in 1996 ended in a sweep to Colorado, and last year the Panthers lost the final in five to Vegas.
WATCH | Oilers can win Canada’s first Cup in three decades:
The Edmonton Oilers have a chance to do what no Canadian NHL team has done in more than three decades: win the Stanley Cup. Andrew Chang breaks down how deep-seated team rivalries and fan loyalty make it a stretch for many Canadians to get on the bandwagon.
So, one way or another, a long wait is about to end. Here are some non-drought things to know about this fascinating Oilers-Panthers matchup:
It’s the opposite of that Spider-Man meme.
In sports, contrasts often make for the most compelling matchups. And there are plenty of contrasts here. You don’t need to be a die-hard hockey fan to appreciate that Edmonton, the NHL’s northernmost outpost, is a long way from sunny South Florida, both spiritually and literally. According to the league, the Oilers and Panthers are separated by 4,089 kilometres, making this the longest distance between opponents in the history of the Cup final.
On the ice, these teams try to beat you in different ways. The Oilers feature the most dynamic offensive player in the sport and ranked near the top of the league in scoring this season. The grittier Panthers tied Winnipeg for the fewest goals allowed.
However, these are not one-dimensional clubs. Florida ranked 11th in scoring this season and has elevated to fourth in goals per game in the playoffs, while Edmonton finished an improved 10th in goals-against average in the regular season and is up to seventh in the playoffs.
Florida is favoured.
The Panthers spent so many years as an NHL backwater that it’s hard for some people to accept that they’ve been one of the league’s premier teams for a while now.
Florida had the fourth-best record in the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season before winning the Presidents’ Trophy the next year while leading the league in goals. A second-round sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay taught GM Bill Zito that he needed to toughen his team up to succeed in the playoffs, so he swapped out interim head coach Andrew Brunette for colourful veteran Paul Maurice and made a blockbuster trade that sent NHL assists leader Jonathan Huberdeau to Calgary for truculent 40-goal scorer Matthew Tkachuk.
Florida has arguably been the best team in the NHL since then. They finished fifth overall this season — but just four points behind the Rangers, who they’d go on to beat in six to win the East — and had the league’s best goal differential.
Along with Tkachuk, who leads the team with 19 points in 17 playoff games, and Bobrovsky, who earned a Vezina nomination and has continued his excellent goaltending through the playoffs, the Panthers are led by Aleksander Barkov, a superb two-way player who just won his second Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward. Sam Reinhart scored 57 goals in the regular season (second in the league) and has another eight in the playoffs, while Carter Verhaeghe tops the team with nine goals in the post-season.
The betting odds for the series imply Florida has about a 55 per cent chance of hoisting the Stanley Cup. Given their star power, depth, determination and experience, it’s hard to argue with that.
But Edmonton can absolutely win the Cup.
A counter-argument can be made that the Oilers are actually the best team in hockey right now. They got off to an ugly 3-9-1 start while McDavid battled an unspecified injury that derailed his bid for a fourth straight scoring title. But, from the time Kris Knoblauch replaced Jay Woodcroft as head coach in mid-November to the end of the regular season, Edmonton had the best record in the league. The Oilers benefitted from a relatively smooth path to the Western final, beating punchless L.A. in five and green Vancouver in seven. Their victory over Dallas was more impressive, as Edmonton dispatched the West’s top seed in six.
McDavid is obviously the key to all of this. He leads all playoff scorers with 31 points in 18 games, including his highlight-reel goal in the final game against Dallas. If Edmonton wins the Cup, he’s getting the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
But a big reason why McDavid is playing in his first Cup final is because his supporting cast has really stepped up. Leon Draisaitl, a former MVP and scoring champ himself, ranks second in playoff scoring with 28 points while rising-star defenceman Evan Bouchard is third with 27. McDavid’s linemate Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is next with 21 points. His other linemate, Zach Hyman, leads the playoffs with 14 goals after potting a career-high 54 in the regular season.
Now, you’ll hear people say things like “heck, I could score 50 goals on a line with McDavid.” But they’re lying and also ignoring how good Hyman is. He has a nose for the puck and is a great finisher around the net, making him an ideal winger for the scoring-chance machine that is McDavid. Nugent-Hopkins adds a valuable two-way presence to the trio, which is shredding opponents this post-season.
Give Stuart Skinner his flowers too. The mustachioed goalie has let the Oilers down at times in the past, but he really came through for his hometown team in the clincher against Dallas. Skinner stopped 33 of the Stars’ 34 shots in a 2-1 win where Edmonton managed just 10 shots — the fewest by a team in a playoff win in 34 years. “He absolutely stole one for us,” McDavid raved.
It’s all coming together for Edmonton. Yes, they’re slight underdogs against Florida, but the Oilers still have a good chance of winning their first championship since the Messier era — and freeing us from having to talk about the Canadian Stanley Cup drought anymore.