Merciless Panthers win second successive Stanley Cup after beating Oilers again

The Guardian

5 hours ago

The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final on Tuesday night, becoming the NHL's first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021, and the third team to do so this century.
Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming just the fourth player in league history to achieve the feat in a Stanley Cup final game. His third to complete the hat-trick sent rats, along with hats, flying on to the ice. Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the franchise, fittingly scored the Cup clincher.
At the other end of the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced, closing the door on a Stanley Cup rematch with the same end result. The only Oilers goal came from fellow Russian Vasily Podkolzin in garbage time, long after the outcome was decided.
That was followed by chants of 'We want the Cup!' as time ticked off the clock. The Panthers already had it. Now they get to keep it.
Not long after the Lightning made three trips to the final in a row, Florida have done the same and now have the makings of a modern-day dynasty. The Panthers have won 11 of 12 playoff series since Tkachuk arrived by trade and Paul Maurice took over as coach in the summer of 2022.
The only time they have been on the wrong side of a handshake line was the final in Vegas in 2023, and that was after several key players were banged up and gutting through significant injuries.
From the core of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett on down the roster, they were much healthier this time around and were boosted by key trade deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones. Bennett led all goalscorers this postseason with 15, and Marchand had six in the final alone.
Getting depth contributions from throughout the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers, who struggled with Florida's ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders multiple times in the final. Stuart Skinner got the nod in Game 6 and was again done in by mistakes in front of him that ended with the puck in the net behind him and had his own blunder on Reinhart's second goal.
McDavid tried to take over but was again stymied by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with seven points in his second career trip to the final, again denied his first title.
Canada's Stanley Cup drought reached 31 seasons and 32 years dating to Montreal in 1993. Teams in the US Sun Belt have won the title five of the past six times, four of them in Florida.
This run through Tampa Bay in five, Toronto in seven, Carolina in five and Edmonton in six showed how clinical the Panthers have become under Maurice, who has coached more NHL games than everyone except Scotty Bowman and is now a two-time champion.
So is Marchand, who last hoisted the Cup in 2011 with the Boston Bruins. The 14-year gap is the third-longest in league history, just shy of 16 for Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 for Mark Recchi from 1991 to 2006.