The Florida Panthers ended this season the same way they ended the last one – by defeating the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup. The only difference is that this one took just six games.
The Panthers capped off their second straight championship season with a dominant 5-1 victory over the Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday night. Sam Reinhart scored four goals, the last two into an empty net, to become the first player to have a four-goal game in the Stanley Cup Final since Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens did it on April 6, 1957.
The Panthers became the first team to clinch at home in consecutive years since the Oilers in 1987 and 1988. Both Cup-winning victories came against Edmonton, but this one was a far cry from last year’s 2-1 Game 7 nailbiter.
“It’s incredible,” said Panthers forward Brad Marchand, who was acquired from the Boston Bruins prior to the NHL Trade Deadline in March. “I can’t put into reality how great this feels.”
Matthew Tkachuk had the other goal for Florida and it was actually the Stanley Cup winning goal. Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves, giving him two championships to go along with winning the Vezina Trophy twice.
Sam Bennett didn’t score in the clincher but scored five of his playoff-leading 15 goals in the Final – including a Stanley Cup-record 13 on the road — and was voted winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
It was a bitter ending for the Oilers, who paid the price for having to chase the game every night after falling behind. Connor McDavid, who won the Conn Smythe last year despite playing for the losing team, scored just once in six games. He was largely shut down by Bobrovsky and his teammates – and finished the night with his head in his hands, watching the Panthers celebrate again. Edmonton’s two wins came in overtime after the Oilers overcame multi-goal deficits in Games 1 and 4 – but playing from behind is not a formula for success in hockey’s highest-stakes event.
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The Oilers had the game’s first five shots, but the Panthers capitalized on an Edmonton mistake to grab a 1-0 lead.
Mattias Ekholm’s pass to defensive partner Evan Bouchard was in his skates, giving Reinhart the chance to steal the puck just outside the Edmonton blue line. Reinhart barged past Ekholm, cut in on goalie Stuart Skinner and snapped a shot from inside the left circle that tucked just inside the far post. It extended Reinhart’s goal-scoring streak to four games and put Florida ahead to stay.
Bobrovsky twice preserved the lead midway through the period, first by stopping Bouchard’s rocket from the high slot, and soon after by poke-checking the puck away from McDavid as he cut toward the net from below the right circle with Corey Perry standing all alone at the other post.
But the Oilers couldn’t get out of the period merely trailing by one goal. Tkachuk jumped onto the ice on a line change, got to the high slot, took a pass from Eetu Luostarinen and fired a wrist shot through a screen and past Skinner at 19:13 for a 2-0 lead.
Talk about a backbreaker.
The Panthers had the better of the high-danger chances in the second period (6-2, according to Natural Stat Trick), just as they’d had in the first (5-1). Perry missed the net after a McDavid pass on a 2-on-1 break less than three minutes into the period, and the Panthers gave themselves more breathing room at 17:31 with a little help from Skinner.
The Oilers goaltender failed to glove an unscreened shot from the right circle by Carter Verhaeghe, and the puck caromed into the left circle, where Aleksander Barkov quickly grabbed it and fired back toward the net. The puck hit Reinhart’s leg and slid into the net for a 3-0 lead.
The third period was a clinic in shutdown hockey by the Panthers until Reinhart hit the empty net twice in a span of 1:29 to make it 5-0. Vasily Podkolzin’s goal at 15:18 did nothing more than spoil Bobrovsky’s shutout.
After that, there was nothing else to do but bathe in the cheers of “We Want The Cup,” let the clock run down to :00 and line up for the sweetest moment in hockey.
3 takeaways after Panthers defeat Oilers 5-1 to win Stanley Cup
1. Florida joins NHL royalty with back-to-back titles
The Panthers are now part of an elite club, one that doesn’t include half of the Original Six. By defeating the Oilers again, the Panthers became the ninth franchise in NHL history to win at least two consecutive Stanley Cup championships.
Amazingly, they are the third team to do it in the past 10 years, joining the Pittsburgh Penguins (2016 and 2017) and the Panthers’ in-state rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020 and 2021). One thing that’s made the two Cups a little sweeter for Florida and its fans is that the Panthers defeated the Lightning in the first round on the way to each championship.
A third straight victory would put them in the ranks of NHL dynasties. The only teams to win the Cup in three or more consecutive seasons are the Canadiens (five straight from 1956-60 and four in a row from 1976-79), Islanders (four straight from 1980-83 before losing to the Oilers in the 1984 Final) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (three in a row from 1947-49 and 1962-64). The Panthers were also in the Final for the third straight year; only the Canadiens, Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers (1974-76) have accomplished that feat in the past half-century.
“We’ve got to be a dynasty now,” Tkachuk said. “Three years in a row finals, two championships. This is a special group.”
The Panthers are also the first team to defeat the same opponent in the Final since the Canadiens swept the Boston Bruins in 1977 and beat them in six games in 1978.
2. Big guns come through for Panthers
Florida got 18 goals from the trio of Reinhart, Marchand and Bennett, plus the Cup-winner from Tkachuk, who finished with three goals and seven points in the six games. The Oilers managed just 17 goals in the entire series.
Bennett, Marchand (6) and Reinhart (7) are the second trio of teammates to score at least five goals apiece in a Stanley Cup Final; the only other time it happened was in 1955, when Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio and Ted Lindsay did so for the Detroit Red Wings.
Reinhart’s big night made him the first player to score seven times in a Stanley Cup Final since Wayne Gretzky in 1987. Seven goals are the most any player has scored in the Final since 1922.
Bennett scored twice in Game 1 and once each in Games 2, 3 and 5. Marchand scored twice in Games 2 and 5, getting the winning goal in each and winning the second game in double overtime. He also scored single goals in Games 1 and 3. His shorthanded goal in Game 2 was the only one of the series.
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3. Another disappointment for McDavid, Oilers
The saddest time for an NHL team is having to line up and shake hands with the team that’s just defeated you to win the Stanley Cup. McDavid and the Oilers have had to do it in back-to-back years, each time after losing the deciding game to the Panthers.
The anguish on McDavid’s face when the Panthers and their fans celebrated around them was palpable. The League’s top star had publicly made atoning for last year’s disappointment his primary focus this season.
McDavid did finish the series with seven points but scored just once. For the second straight year, he didn’t have a point in the deciding game, He also finished the series minus-7, including minus-4 in Game 6.
“We lost to a really good team,” McDavid said. “Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in, but they’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”
McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who scored the OT winners for the Oilers in Games 1 and 4, each said before Game 6 how the Panthers “still haven’t seen their best.”
Instead, the Oilers spent the night chasing the game, as they had all series. The Panthers outscored them 13-4 in first periods, including 9-0 in the final four games. That allowed Florida to dictate the pace of the game, to tighten up as they did in the third period, and to frustrate Edmonton until the final buzzer.
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