Revenge or reprise? 'Mature' Oilers poised for Cup final rematch with battle-tested Panthers
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The Oilers were crestfallen. Heads sank into hands. Tears flowed from reddened eyes.
Edmonton's bloodied and bearded roster had given everything in the Stanley Cup final.
The gutsy, backs-against-the-wall effort — valiant in erasing a 3-0 series deficit to force Game 7 — came up just short 12 months ago.
The team's core, led by superstar captain Connor McDavid, vowed that sweltering Florida night after falling to the Panthers that they would be back on the same stage.
"It's been a want since the end of last year," Corey Perry, the Oilers' greybeard winger, said of a return to the NHL's title series. "There's been a lot of thinking about what happened last year, and self-reflecting.
"Here we are."
The Oilers, it turns out, were right.
Edmonton will make a second consecutive appearance in the Cup final after beating the Dallas Stars 4-1 in the Western Conference final. And Florida, once again, is waiting.
"It was on our mind since we lost that last game," Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said of his team's mission. "It was a long, tough summer, training camp, regular season."
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The team from Alberta's capital didn't have its best for stretches of that 82-game schedule. Edmonton finished third in the Pacific Division following a rash of injuries down the stretch and fell behind 0-2 to the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the playoffs.
All the club has done since? Put up a 12-2 mark in rebounding with four straight wins against the Kings before getting past both the Vegas Golden Knights and the Stars in five games.
And unlike last spring when the Oilers, who host Game 1 of the Cup final Wednesday, relied heavily on the contributions of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — to be clear, the two headliners have again been excellent — the group has got goals from 19 different players in this post-season.
A rebuilt defence corps, meanwhile, weathered the loss of Mattias Ekholm, back from injury for Thursday's 6-3 victory in Game 5 over Dallas after basically two months on the shelf, while the goaltending of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard has come up huge when needed.
"Some teams get really hot coming down the stretch and they ride it all the way through the playoffs," McDavid said late Thursday night in the bowels of a cavernous American Airlines Center. "For us, it's come together in the playoffs. We've been building and building and building our game.
"Our best hockey is still in front of us."
Edmonton had already ridden a wild roller-coaster by this point last year. This run feels different.
"The first time you go through it, there's a ton of joy and excitement," Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse said of winning three playoff rounds. "And there is now, don't get me wrong, but there's also a hunger and knowing what's coming and the opportunity that's ahead. We're all excited."
"Those games can be emotionally draining," McDavid added. "We're not drained — we've got lots of depth. We've got as good a chance as they do."
That would be the nasty, battle-tested Panthers — in a third straight final after steamrolling the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1, bossing the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7, and disposing of the Carolina Hurricanes in five.
"We know what they're about," Draisaitl said. "We played them seven times. It's nice to get a shot at getting some revenge, but we're a long ways from that."
Knoblauch said his players are wiser as they pivot to an opponent led by Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Sergei Bobrovsky and Brad Marchand making its third straight Cup appearance.
"This is a mature group," the second-year bench boss said of Edmonton. "They're older. They've seen a lot of playoff hockey. They know what they need to do to get it done."
The task, however, remains daunting.
"If it's going to change, we're going to play our best hockey," Knoblauch added. "We have a chance, but we're going to have to be at our best."
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