Panthers scratch Oilers to win back-to-back Stanley Cups

Florida forward Sam Bennett becomes 43rd Canadian Conn Smythe trophy winner

Zafir Nagji, Sports Editor |

For the second consecutive year, Canadian hockey fans gave up their allegiances to their hometown team to rally behind the Edmonton Oilers in the hopes of breaking a 32-year drought and bringing a Stanley Cup home to a Canadian city. Facing a familiar foe in the Florida Panthers, who defeated Edmonton in seven gruelling games last year, the Oilers put their best skate forward and lasted six games before conceding back-to-back Stanley Cup Final losses to their new rivals from South Beach.

Has the well run dry?

With stars like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers have looked like the best Canadian team in the league for the last two seasons. Household names like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Evander Kane fueled their offence, while certified tough-guys Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak bolstered their defence.

However, the criticisms surrounding the Oilers all year long were aimed at their goaltending core, which consisted of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard. While Skinner proved his mettle in the biggest moments of the Oilers’ 2024 Stanley Cup Final run, he garnered a reputation for inconsistency and ranked 31st of 55 eligible goalies in goals allowed per game. Backup goalie Pickard showed flashes of brilliance, but wasn’t much better and ranked 21st in that statistic. As a result, the Oilers allowed the 14th-most goals per game, ranking seven spots lower than their Stanley Cup Final rivals.

Despite their troublesome goaltender situation, though, the Oilers executed their counter-strategy to perfection on their back-to-back journeys to the biggest stage – score more goals than your goalies concede. The Oilers scored the 11th-most goals and took the most shots of any team in the NHL this season, using their nuclear first and second forward lines to dominate the offensive end. However, Florida has now shown Edmonton in back-to-back years that having a balanced roster that plays elite hockey on both ends of the rink is key to winning at the highest level. Now, the Oilers will be tasked with retooling their roster as they try to convince McDavid to re-sign with them despite receiving record-setting offers from loaded teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins.

The (Florida) Keys to success

After losing to the Vegas Golden Knights at the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals, the Florida Panthers have won back-to-back Stanley Cups in three consecutive finals appearances, further exemplifying the state’s dominance in the NHL of late. Each of the last six Stanley Cup Finals series has featured a Floridian team, with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning two of their three consecutive appearances from 2020 to 2022 before the Panthers’ dominant run.

In both teams’ cases, building a complete and balanced roster filled with star talent was key to their success. For Tampa Bay, that meant retaining routine 100-point scorer Nikita Kucherov and sensational Canadian sniper Steven Stamkos while putting Andrei Vasilevskiy, one of the best netminders in the league, between the posts and keeping Norris trophy-winner Victor Hedman on the roster.

The Panthers were no different, with high-end forward talents like former Calgary Flames forwards Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett and one of the best goaltenders in the league, Sergei Bobrovsky, in the crease. Furthering their cause was Brad Marchand, whom the Panthers acquired via a mid-season trade with the Boston Bruins to further bolster their roster. A savvy veteran who won his first Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011, Marchand is one of the most iconic Canadian hockey players of the modern generation and became the first player to score six goals in four Stanley Cup Final games since  Esa Tikkanen in 1988 – and two of those were game-winners.

So why do good NHL players love to play in Florida? Florida is one of eight states to not levy income taxes, and since NHL stars get paid significantly less than the stars of the NBA, NFL and MLB, they are more inclined to play based on pay. The Panthers’ ownership group are also more than willing to pay their players and max out their salary cap, leading the league in total cap allocations last season and ranking in the top 10 every season since the 2021-22 season. Combine that with the beaches, weather and cheap real estate, and Florida is a clear winner as a destination for professional athletes of any sport, especially hockey.

Mixed emotions for Canada

Canadian hockey fans have been waiting for the Stanley Cup to come home for 32 years, with the last team to do so being the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens. Many fans even put their hometown allegiances to the side to cheer on whichever Canadian team appears on the biggest stage, so each year that a Canadian team fails to bring the Cup home feels like a failure for all 10 provinces and three territories.
However, Canadian players have claimed the Conn Smythe Trophy for the best player in the Stanley Cup Finals 48 times since 1965 – that’s an 80 per cent rate. Most experts around the NHL believe that McDavid is the best player in the league and has the potential to become the greatest of all time, and Calgary-born defenceman Cale Makar is widely considered the best defenceman in the league, teaming up with Canadian forward Nathan MacKinnon to make the Colorado Avalanche a perennial title contender.

Goaltending is the only position on the ice where Canada has fallen behind the rest of the world, but St. Louis Blues netminder Jordan Binnington proved his mettle at the 4 Nations Face-Off earlier this year when he made a plethora of impossible saves to help Team Canada secure a gold medal in their final against Team USA.

Even though Canadian hockey teams have been unable to bring the Stanley Cup home for over three decades, Canadian players have always been and continue to be at the forefront of every successful roster in the NHL. Plus, Canadian fans will be able to celebrate soon as the 2026 Los Angeles Winter Olympics will allow NHL players to compete for the first time since the 2014 Sochi Games. Team Canada will be looking to win their 15th gold medal in ice hockey at the Winter Olympics, which should act as a comforting relief for their supporters as the Stanley Cup drought continues for Canadian teams in the NHL.