2025 Stanley Cup Final: Oilers vs. Panthers series preview
Edmonton Oilers: 3rd in Pacific Division, 101 points, Def. LA Round 1 (4-2); Def. VGK Round 2 (4-1); Def. DAL Round 3 (4-1)
Florida Panthers: 3rd in Atlantic Division, 98 points, Def. TB Round 1 (4-1); Def. TOR Round 2 (4-3); Def. CAR Round 3 (4-1)
Schedule (ET)
| Date | Game | Time (ET) |
| Wednesday, June 4 | 1. Florida at Edmonton | 8 p.m. ET |
| Friday, June 6 | 2. Florida at Edmonton | 8 p.m. ET |
| Monday, June 9 | 3. Edmonton at Florida | 8 p.m. ET |
| Thursday, June 12 | 4. Edmonton at Florida | 8 p.m. ET |
| *Saturday, June 14 | 5. Florida at Edmonton | 8 p.m. ET |
| *Tuesday, June 17 | 6. Edmonton at Florida | 8 p.m. ET |
| * Friday, June 20 | 7. Florida at Edmonton | 8 p.m. ET |
The Skinny
The Thrilla in Manilla. The Bite Fight. “No mas.” Heightened stakes and bad blood have carved countless rematches into boxing myth over the years. In the world of hockey, though, securing a championship rematch is a bit more complex than signing on the dotted line after a few months of squabbling over money.
Financially, the previous year’s finalists were helpless to stop quality free agents like Brandon Montour and Philip Broberg from becoming salary cap casualties. Physically, superstars like Connor McDavid and Matt Tkachuk were especially susceptible to injury after a grueling playoff run and short offseason. Mentally, both sides were drained by the comedown from the summer’s biggest party on one side and the agony of seeing a 100-game grind end just short of the ultimate prize on the other.
Fighting through that adversity and back to the Stanley Cup Final is tough enough for one team. For both conference champions to repeat is exceedingly unlikely. It’s happened just four times in the Expansion Era; three times since the end of inevitable Original Six vs. Expansion matchups in 1971; once since the implementation of the salary cap after the 2004-05 lockout.
And yet here we are, just days from Game 1 of the second-consecutive Stanley Cup showdown between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers. The way they’ve played so far, you’d be forgiven for thinking such rematches are commonplace.
Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan-Nugent Hopkins have fired the Oilers to an incredible 12-2 mark since their rocky start to the postseason and made a great Dallas Stars team look ordinary for the second season in a row. All that’s left is to etch their names onto the Cup.
Sergei Bobrovsky, Aleksander Barkov, and the Panthers earned that honor last year, but success hasn’t seemed to make them complacent; they’re 8-2 since falling down 2-0 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Round 2. After dismantling the Carolina Hurricanes (it actually wasn’t a sweep this time), they’re the fourth team to three-peat as conference champs since 1980.
Can this heavyweight tilt possibly top last year’s instant classic, when the Oil charged back from a 3-0 hole to force a heart-stopping Game 7? We’ll soon find out.
Head to Head
Edmonton: 0-2
Florida: 2-0
Fans who cleared their schedules to see the Cats and Oilers face off last winter didn’t come to regret it: the champs downed their old foes by a total score of 10-8 in two thoroughly entertaining, down-to-the-wire matchups.
McDavid pitched in with four assists in the season series as Draisaitl netted in both games. Zach Hyman also got on the score sheet in each contest, including two goals on Dec. 16, which makes his season-ending upper-body injury that much more painful.
The Panthers’ signature scoring depth was on display as eight of their skaters found twine, with top-line snipers Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe scoring in both games. Niko Mikkola continued his bizarre dominance over the Oilers (four of his 21 NHL goals have come against them), while countryman Anton Lundell burned the Oil for a goal and five points.
Sergei Bobrovsky “outdueled” Stuart Skinner in both games, but neither netminder covered himself in glory, averaging four and five goals against, respectively.
Florida added Brad Marchand and Seth Jones shortly after the teams last met on Feb. 27, while the Oilers traded for coveted lefty defenseman Jake Walman. That means neither club will put a ton of stock into its regular season showdowns, especially now that they’ve drastically improved their respective defenses throughout the postseason.
Top Five Scorers
Edmonton
Connor McDavid, 26 points
Leon Draisaitl, 25 points
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 18 points
Evan Bouchard, 17 points
Evander Kane, 11 points
Florida
Aleksander Barkov, 17 points
Sam Bennett, 16 points
Matthew Tkachuk, 16 points
Carter Verhaeghe, 14 points
Brad Marchand, 14 points
X-Factor
Connor McDavid is the best player in the world. Most of Sasha Barkov’s current and former teammates rank him second. The consensus places Leon Drasaitl no lower than fifth. For most of 2023, Matt Tkachuk was in plenty of top 10s. Would you believe me, then, if I told you 40-year-old Corey Perry was the X-factor in this series? I can henceforth refer to him as former MVP Corey Perry to bolster my argument, but his All-Star days are a decade in the rearview.
Perry was never supposed to be this important to the Oilers’ title hopes, even after his most prolific goal-scoring campaign (19, tied with two others) since 2015-16. He stirs the pot as well as ever, but he doesn’t skate, score, or hit the way he did in in his Anaheim Ducks heyday.
His netfront finishing has been enough for coach Kris Knoblauch to frequently employ him on McDavid and Draisaitl’s right wing when they link up at even strength, though, and Perry’s nose for goal has been even more potent on the power play. ‘The Worm’ netted his fourth power-play goal of the playoffs to open the score in Game 5 against Dallas.
Perry’s seven playoff goals already mark the third-highest tally of his illustrious career, but he needs to pot a few more big ones to get Edmonton over the hump. Hyman is done for the season, and Perry is the only other Oilers’ right winger with enough finish to his game and chemistry with McDavid to fill his skates opposite Draisaitl or, more often, Nugent-Hopkins.
Can Perry keep his Cinderella run going and ride off into the sunset with a long-awaited second ring, or does a juiced-up shooting % (33.33) mean he’s destined to turn into a pumpkin at the worst possible time?
Offense
By now you know the book on McDavid, whose end-to-end explosiveness is rivaled in NHL history by only Bobby Orr. McDavid’s blistering speed made the rapid Roope Hintz look more like Derian Hatcher midway through Game 5. McDavid predictably leads all postseason scorers.
CONNOR MCDAVID SCORES A BEAUTY TO PUT THE OILERS UP BY TWO!
🎥: Sportsnet pic.twitter.com/gB8dNqC2W3
If Draisaitl is less feared than his captain, the margins are slim. The German’s size, speed, and one-time threat make him the most complete offensive player in the NHL. Kasperi Kapanen’s wheels and work ethic earned him a permanent place on Draisaitl’s right wing in round three, and, if resurgent power forward Evander Kane (5 G, 11 P in 15 GP) becomes a fixture on their left, Edmonton will go into the Final with its most dangerous second unit in some years.
The backup dancers aren’t half bad, either. Despite flip-flopping with Draisaitl between first-line left winger and second-line center all postseason, Nugent-Hopkins (5 G, 18 P in 16 GP) is playing arguably the best hockey of his long career. Perry has turned back the clock, and two-way winger Connor Brown, who missed Games 4 and 5 with an apparent concussion, is building a reputation as a playoff gamer (5 G, 8 P in 14 GP).
The defensemen are getting into the action as well (19/21 EDM skaters recorded a point in the WCF). Evan Bouchard is, of course, their ringleader. Aged just 25, he’s already a legendary postseason performer with another six goals under his belt this spring. The ‘Bouch Bomb’ is a staple of the league’s most feared power play.
The Panthers don’t have an offensive producer on par with Edmonton’s big three of Draisaitl, McDavid, and Bouchard. Still, their overall attack has matched the Oilers’ stride-for-stride through three rounds (66 G to EDM’s 71) behind perhaps the deepest forward group of the cap era.
Tireless forechecker Eetu Luostarinen, two-way ace Anton Lundell, and future Hall-of-Famer Brad Marchand, nominally the team’s third line, sent the Maple Leafs into an existential crisis with at least five points apiece in the second round. Playoff killer Carter Verhaeghe (32 playoff goals since 2021, fifth-most), polarizing power forward Sam Bennett (league-most 10 G this postseason), and Tkachuk bossed the Eastern Conference championship with a combined eight goals and 20 points.
Barkov, the cerebral leader of Florida’s rowdy group, has kept it hot through it all with at least five points in each round despite a brief injury to right-hand-man Sam Reinhart. Even Swiss Army Knife Evan Rodrigues, so often the forgotten man in the Cats’ top-nine, has 10 points. It’s a deep, tough group that mixes in scoring and defense to a man.
Verhaeghe restores the Panthers’ lead!
🎥: Sportsnet pic.twitter.com/eh982IY5O5
That was well-known before the puck dropped on the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but even after three straight Wales Trophy wins, the Panthers are still finding ways to surprise us. It’s been years since Aaron Ekblad has looked this dynamic going forward (3 G, 11 P in 13 GP). He hasn’t let Florida miss what Brandon Montour brought to the table in previous runs.
Defense
For so much of McDavid’s early career, the Oilers were the fun team to watch that could never win, hamstrung by their total reliance on a high-flying offense. They’re still piling up the goals, but under Knoblauch, they’re also specialists in holding late-game leads with an iron grip. They limited Dallas to four third-period shots in three of the final four games of the Western Conference Final.
Knoblauch has the personnel to match his defensive ambitions, especially now that Mattias Ekholm is back from a late-season injury to protect the sometimes-shaky Bouchard. Brett Kulak was excellent as Ekholm’s stand-in, and despite brutal puck luck as a pair (outscored 2-6, .778 on-ice SV%), he’s just as effective on his offside as man-mountain Darnell Nurse’s partner.
Walman and John Klingberg, whose career was on life support just six months ago, have been the team’s secret weapon on defense, a third pair in name only. The former, whose +12 rating leads all skaters, is equally comfortable transporting the puck and winning battles. Klingberg, an offensive dynamo in his younger days, has put his passing skills to good use by producing clean exits.
If Ekholm can straighten out an uncharacteristically floundering PK (66%), the Oilers’ biggest concern on defense will be their stylistic similarity to the Carolina team the Cats just humiliated. Like the Canes, their defense is all about gapping up in the neutral zone and limiting the bad guys’ zone time with quick breakouts, easier said than done against Florida’s smothering forecheck. Bennett and Tkachuk will test Bouchard and Nurse, both of whom can be erratic on the puck, early and often.
Veterans Nate Schmidt and Dmitry Kulikov give Florida a more clearly defined bottom pair. Still, they’ve more than held their own so far (6-4 game score, 61.9% high-danger chance share), and the top four is soaring.
Ekblad and tireless shutdown Swede Gustav Forsling have cleared so many tough minutes for Florida over the past three postseasons. They are the third-most used pair of the postseason despite the former missing three games to separate suspensions. The mobile, do-it-all duo will be coach Paul Maurice’s go-to against McDavid, who tagged them with a -5 and -2, respectively, in last year’s matchup. If anyone has a better idea of how to stop him, the rest of the NHL is all ears.
Mikkola and Jones will have their cracks at the McDavid line on a second unit with the fourth-best expected-goal share (63.41%) of any duo in the postseason (min. 70 minutes at five-on-five). The actual goals are on their side, too: Mikkola and Jones have won their minutes 12-4. Jones, overextended as a blueline lynchpin for the entirety of his ill-fated tenure with the Chicago Blackhawks, has at times been the best player on the ice for Florida. Mikkola is every bit as big and quick as Jones and plays with some snarl to boot. They’re an imposing duo to look at with the results to match.
Then there’s the forward group. Barkov has taken the perennial Selke baton from Patrice Bergeron, linemate Reinhart will join him on the podium this summer, and Lundell is quietly a defensive dominator in his own right. Along with Luostarinen, the trio anchors a penalty kill that’s succeeding nearly 88% of the time despite the ample opportunities Marchand and Bennett’s antics provide. Last year, Florida’s kill surrendered just three goals to the vaunted Oilers’ man advantage.
Goaltending
It’s hard not to root for hometown kid Stuart Skinner, who has bounced back from losing his crease to Cal Pickard to rattle off three shutouts and a 6-2 record. Pickard’s “good enough” brand of goaltending was sufficient to lead the Oil to a perfect 6-0 record, but since he went down hurt, Skinner has been exceptional (1.73 GAA, .931 SV%).
Pickard was back on the bench for Game 5, and Edmonton fans will hope Skinner’s play will justify keeping Pickard there all series. When Skinner is switched on, the big man is great at cutting off angles and making tough stops looks simple. When he’s not, the simple stops can look exceedingly tough. You can’t knock Skinner’s intestinal fortitude, though. For the second straight season, he’s shaken off adversity and saved his best hockey for last.
In the past two playoff years Stuart Skinner was relegated to the backup.
In the combined 23 games after getting back in the net he's posted a combined .920Sv% and 1.93 GAA.
You can't question his resiliency and ability to refocus.
Only one netminder has posted a higher SV% (.938) and lower GAA (1.51) than Skinner over his past eight playoff starts. Would you care to fashion a guess who? ‘Playoff Bob’ means something very different than it did back in 2020. The rail-thin Russian is a regular Patrick Roy these days, and it’s a good thing. Florida’s talented backup Spencer Knight went the other way in the Jones trade. It’s Bob or Bust, and after 60 games worth of the best playoff goaltending you’ll ever be lucky enough to watch (40-19, .911 SV%, 2.41 GAA since 2023), Maurice and Co. like those odds.
Injuries
Hyman played such a complete, heart-and-soul game during the first three rounds (11 P, +10, 111 hits). Hockey is cruel, though, and getting winged by Mason Marchment was enough to send Hyman to the press box until next fall.
Former big-ticket free-agent signing Viktor Arvidsson has taken his spot in the lineup despite a tough regular season (15 G, 27 P in 67 GP). He looked good on a high-energy line with Mattias Janmark and Vasiliy Podkolzin in the closeout game. That means Jeff Skinner, the 33-year-old who finally got his long-awaited playoff moment on Thursday, is likely the odd man out if Brown is good to go ahead for Game 1.
As if they weren’t good enough already, the Panthers are healthy as a horse up and down the lineup. Reinhart was back and better than ever (2 A) to close out Carolina as fourth-line grinder A.J. Greer drew back into the lineup ahead of Nico Sturm. If Florida has another injury knock in their forward group, their “fifth line” of Sturm, rookie Mackie Samoskevich, and the especially unlucky Jesper Boqvist (5 P in 10 GP) is on call.
Intangibles
There is no hyperbole adequate to describe Edmonton’s desperation in this series. Draisaitl gets a $5.5-million raise on July 1. Bouchard’s will be even more costly. Kane, who sat out the regular season on the LTIR, adds another $5.125 million to the pot, and McDavid comes due for an extension in 2026. The cash is spent, the prospect pipeline is barren, and the roster is old.
This is it, the Oilers’ last, best chance to win the Big One in the collective prime of two transcendent, special players. That reality has made them a surly, agitated group all season. It’s also given them clarity and a no-nonsense attitude that won’t allow anything to get in the way of their championship destiny. The last hurdle? The best team in the NHL, the guys who stomped on their dreams for documentary cameras to see 12 short months ago. Don’t go holding your sticks too tight now.
Can Florida match that desperation now that they almost seem bored by the cauldron of the Stanley Cup Playoffs? The Maple Leafs were a bounce away from putting the Cats down 3-0, and yet there Tkachuk and Bennett were a week later, reminding themselves it’s not as easy as they make it look and congratulating teammates with plenty of time left in a 6-1 Game 7 drubbing. Maurice has tried to remind anyone who will listen that it isn’t as easy as they make it look, but does he believe it?
"So much closer than you think but you're gonna kill those guys and they don't deserve it."
Despite winning 6-1, Paul Maurice says it was closer than you think. pic.twitter.com/vfvpasflOe
The regular season has become meaningless to this group, and despite a sub-100-point finish, the Panthers are a better team than they were at this time last year. Win this, and they immediately join the ranks of the greatest teams of all time. Waste it, and they might find themselves wishing their early opponents pushed them a little harder.
Series Prediction
Where is the weakness between these two clubs that the other can exploit? Edmonton’s penalty kill, which was without its main man until Thursday night? Skinner, who definitively outdueled international players Adin Hill and Jake Oettinger? That the Panthers’ leading scorer “only” has 17 points? With the benefit of hindsight, it’s remarkable that it once made sense to predict that the Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, or anyone else would end up exactly at this moment.
The Panthers have a stronger lineup player for player, but the Oilers’ depth is far better than it was when they took the Cats to seven in 2024, even without Hyman. They’ll have to survive Florida’s physical onslaught early on to make their superior high-end talent and home-ice advantage count, but those key advantages will see them through a war and give the best player of his generation a crowning achievement.
Oilers in seven games.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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