How the Oilers lost their second straight Stanley Cup Final

There’s no shame in being one of the best teams in the National Hockey League.

But no matter which way you cut the cake, it’s nearly impossible to take solace in that when you watch the team across from you lift the Stanley Cup — doubly so when you’re the Edmonton Oilers, who watched it happen for the second straight year on Tuesday night.

It’s easy to point out the issues. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl didn’t step up in a way they needed to in the final two games of the series. Flip-flopping goaltenders throughout the playoffs seemed to hurt both. Losing Zach Hyman right before the Final also meant they lost some juice. A defence that looked so good turned pedestrian.

And while the first four games of this year’s Final between the Oilers and Florida Panthers had everyone calling it one of the closest and most entertaining Stanley Cup Finals we’ve seen in some time, that changed on a dime in the final two games. Florida outscored the Oilers 10-3 and pulled away in this series like a muscle car on a drag racing track.

The deciding Game 6 had all the hallmarks of the series as a whole. There were two key mistakes the Oilers made in the first period: Mattias Ekholm threw a bouncing grenade pass to Evan Bouchard that Sam Reinhart was able to pick off, and in the final minute of the frame, Edmonton took their foot off the gas. Both mistakes ended up behind Stuart Skinner.

From that point on, their backs weren’t just against the wall — they were in the coffin, and the Panthers were hammering the nails to shut it.

“We kept saying we want to try and win a 2-1 game,” said McDavid after the game. “Never found a way to do that, obviously.

“They got great players, I mean, how many had 20+ points in their postseason? They’re as deep as it comes. I thought we played a pretty good (first) period, and two mistakes, and we’re chasing the game.”

It was the lack of consistency throughout the series that would cost them. They came out with a strong Game 1 to win 4-3 in overtime, and were a goal away from a 2-0 series lead after Game 2, but one bounce the other way changed it. Game 3 wasn’t particularly close, but the Oilers found a way to gut out a win on the road in Game 4.

It gave the organization life coming back home for Game 5, knowing there was a chance to tilt the series back in their favour, and put the Panthers on the brink of elimination. Instead, they looked like a team on the second half of a back-to-back to close out a mid-winter road trip.

“I think Florida just played a consistent game. That’s honestly the end of the story,” said Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner. “They played the same way every single night. Nothing changed for them, win or lose. (Sergei) Bobrovsky lets in six or five. He’s doing the same thing the next day. Their team isn’t changing anything.

“And they just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming. I thought we did that for the first two games and then we sort of just changed. From there, we were having some peaks and valleys, and they were just good old Florida Panthers.”

When it mattered most, the Oilers just couldn’t find that next level in their game they were longing for all series. And credit where it’s due — the Panthers are one heckuva hockey team.

Oilogosphere legend Jonathan Willis put it best: “This is a great team that lost to a better one.”

For the Oilers, it’s another learning lesson in a decade worth of them. The comparisons were there for teams who had been in a back-to-back Stanley Cup Final, losing the first one then finding a way to rise above it the second, but it’s something the Oilers evidently were unable to do.

There are lots of questions to be asked, and lots of blame that can be shared for the loss. There are a lot of mirrors to be looked into, but this one has the palpable feeling of being tougher the second time around.

While there were moments that were close in this series, the way the Panthers pulled away was a gut punch.

“There’s no silver lining to this. It’s still heart-wrenching,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch after Game 6, when asked if this loss feels different. “It’s very difficult to handle right now.

“It’s just because we were maybe the underdogs going to the L.A. series, underdogs against Vegas, the Dallas series. It hurts right now, and I don’t think it’s going to let up for a while.”

The pain from 2024’s loss lingered for this team. Knoblauch said so after the Oilers eliminated the Stars, talking about how Edmonton, through training camp and the regular season, were “punching our card, showing up wanting the playoffs, having another opportunity.”

Well, they got it, and it didn’t turn out any different.

Now the Oilers are going to have another long summer, another long training camp, and another long regular season.