Connor McDavid helped Canada win the 4 Nations Face-Off, but he and his Edmonton Oilers teammates weren’t able to end Canada’s decades-long Stanley Cup drought after back-to-back years losing in the final to the Florida Panthers.
They fell in six games this year after losing in seven games in 2024. The last Canadian team to win the Cup was the 1993 Montreal Canadiens.
‘We lost to a really good team,’ McDavid told reporters after the Game 6 loss. ‘Nobody quit, nobody threw in the towel in, they’re a really good team. They’re Stanley Cup champions back to back for a reason.’
The Oilers went into the final at a disadvantage because Zach Hyman had season-ending surgery. They had trouble handling the Panthers’ forechecking and generating offense.
‘We kept trying the same thing over and over again and banging our heads against the wall,’ McDavid said.
Edmonton won the opener and staged a major rally in Game 4 to tie the final at 2-2, then lost the next two games and the series.
‘We kept saying we wanted to try to win a 2-1 game and never found a way to do that obviously,’ McDavid said. ‘They got great players. How many guys had 20-plus points in the postseason? They’re as deep as they come.’
Goalie Stuart Skinner said the Panthers’ consistency is what won the series.
‘We need to learn from this right now,’ said Skinner, who was in net for Game 6 after backup Calvin Pickard started in Game 5. ‘Letting it happen two times in a row is devastating.’
The Oilers started strong in Game 6 but couldn’t dent Sergei Bobrovsky. The Panthers took advantage of two mistakes to head to the first intermission with a 2-0 lead. They outscored Edmonton by a total of 9-0 in the first period over the past four games, leaving the Oilers chasing in every game.
Sam Reinhart (four goals) added to the Game 6 lead after a Skinner mistake when a ‘nothing shot’ by Carter Verhaeghe went off him and the Panthers quickly converted the rebound.
‘He shot it at the blocker side, which was smart. I put it in a spot where I thought it was going to be OK,’ Skinner said. ‘Obviously, it wasn’t for a second and he (Aleksander Barkov) just shot it on the backside and Reinhart was in a good spot.’
The Oilers lost McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to injuries down the stretch and didn’t have Evander Kane until the postseason. As a result, they started every series except the final on the road. They trailed the Los Angeles Kings 2-0 in the first round but rallied to beat them, the Vegas Golden Knights and the Dallas Stars before falling in the final.
‘There’s no silver lining to this,’ Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. ‘It’s heart-wrenching. It’s very difficult to handle right now. … It hurts right now and I don’t think it’s going to let up for a while.’