Panthers rout Oilers to capture second NHL Stanley Cup in a row
THE FLORIDA PANTHERS, powered by Sam Reinhart's four-goal effort, captured their second consecutive Stanley Cup on Tuesday, defeating Edmonton 5-1 to win the NHL Final.
Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 shots while Matthew Tkachuk added a goal for the Panthers, who took the best-of-seven series 4-2.
'It's incredible,' Florida's Brad Marchand said. 'It's a feeling you can't really describe… words can't put this into reality how great it feels. Such an incredible group.'
After claiming their first crown last year, the Panthers become the first NHL club since Tampa Bay in 2020-21 to win back-to-back titles.
Florida beat Edmonton in seven games in last year's Stanley Cup final after squandering a 3-0 series lead, but this time dominated the last two games to hoist the trophy again.
'It's an amazing feeling,' Bobrovsky said. 'They are amazing, the group. I'm so privileged to be their goalie. It's a dream come true and to win that trophy twice, it's amazing.'
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Not since Montreal beat Boston in 1977 and 1978 had a team defeated the same foe in the final two years in a row.
The Panthers, who also lost to Vegas in the 2023 final, obtained Tkachuk in a 2022 trade with Calgary and haven't missed the final since.
'We're a dynasty,' Tkachuk said. 'And I can't believe this is what has happened… It just shows how unbelievable the group is, the depth.'
Reinhart became only the fourth player to score seven goals in an NHL Final after Jean Beliveau in 1956, Mike Bossy in 1982 and Wayne Gretzky in 1985.
'It's not easy coming back again,' Reinhart said. 'You know how hard it is to do. Sometimes that benefits you and sometimes it doesn't.
'We just stuck with it. A lot has to go your way to be standing here at the end. We were up to task again.'
The Oilers, seeking their sixth crown overall, have not won the Cup since 1990.
No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since Montreal in 1993.
Marchand, obtained in a trade from Boston where he won a Cup in 2011, scored six goals in the Stanley Cup Final.
'We just had that fire,' Marchand said. 'We knew we had something special.'
Florida became only the eighth NHL team to clinch the Cup on home ice in back-to-back seasons, the first since the Oilers in 1987 and 1988.
Reinhart runs wild
Just 4:36 into the game, Reinhart stole the puck from Edmonton's Evan Bouchard at the blue line, evaded defender Mattias Ekholm and beat Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner one-on-one to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
It was the 29-year-old Canadian right wing's league-leading 15th goal of the playoffs, coming a day after Reinhart was named to Canada's 2026 Winter Olympic team.
Tkachuk, named to the 2026 US Olympic squad, made it 2-0 for the Panthers just 47 seconds before the end of the first period.
Reinhart made it 3-0 with 2:29 remaining in the second period, deflecting in an Aleksander Barkov shot.
The Oilers pulled Skinner in favor of an extra attacker in desperation and Reinhart made them pay by scoring two goals into the empty net.
Vasily Podkolzin scored for Edmonton with 4:42 remaining to avert a shutout.
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The 42
7 hours ago
- The 42
Panthers rout Oilers to capture second NHL Stanley Cup in a row
THE FLORIDA PANTHERS, powered by Sam Reinhart's four-goal effort, captured their second consecutive Stanley Cup on Tuesday, defeating Edmonton 5-1 to win the NHL Final. Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 shots while Matthew Tkachuk added a goal for the Panthers, who took the best-of-seven series 4-2. 'It's incredible,' Florida's Brad Marchand said. 'It's a feeling you can't really describe… words can't put this into reality how great it feels. Such an incredible group.' After claiming their first crown last year, the Panthers become the first NHL club since Tampa Bay in 2020-21 to win back-to-back titles. Florida beat Edmonton in seven games in last year's Stanley Cup final after squandering a 3-0 series lead, but this time dominated the last two games to hoist the trophy again. 'It's an amazing feeling,' Bobrovsky said. 'They are amazing, the group. I'm so privileged to be their goalie. It's a dream come true and to win that trophy twice, it's amazing.' Advertisement Not since Montreal beat Boston in 1977 and 1978 had a team defeated the same foe in the final two years in a row. The Panthers, who also lost to Vegas in the 2023 final, obtained Tkachuk in a 2022 trade with Calgary and haven't missed the final since. 'We're a dynasty,' Tkachuk said. 'And I can't believe this is what has happened… It just shows how unbelievable the group is, the depth.' Reinhart became only the fourth player to score seven goals in an NHL Final after Jean Beliveau in 1956, Mike Bossy in 1982 and Wayne Gretzky in 1985. 'It's not easy coming back again,' Reinhart said. 'You know how hard it is to do. Sometimes that benefits you and sometimes it doesn't. 'We just stuck with it. A lot has to go your way to be standing here at the end. We were up to task again.' The Oilers, seeking their sixth crown overall, have not won the Cup since 1990. No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since Montreal in 1993. Marchand, obtained in a trade from Boston where he won a Cup in 2011, scored six goals in the Stanley Cup Final. 'We just had that fire,' Marchand said. 'We knew we had something special.' Florida became only the eighth NHL team to clinch the Cup on home ice in back-to-back seasons, the first since the Oilers in 1987 and 1988. Reinhart runs wild Just 4:36 into the game, Reinhart stole the puck from Edmonton's Evan Bouchard at the blue line, evaded defender Mattias Ekholm and beat Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner one-on-one to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead. It was the 29-year-old Canadian right wing's league-leading 15th goal of the playoffs, coming a day after Reinhart was named to Canada's 2026 Winter Olympic team. Tkachuk, named to the 2026 US Olympic squad, made it 2-0 for the Panthers just 47 seconds before the end of the first period. Reinhart made it 3-0 with 2:29 remaining in the second period, deflecting in an Aleksander Barkov shot. The Oilers pulled Skinner in favor of an extra attacker in desperation and Reinhart made them pay by scoring two goals into the empty net. Vasily Podkolzin scored for Edmonton with 4:42 remaining to avert a shutout.
Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Irish Times
Club World Cup offers first glimpse of Trent Alexander-Arnold 2.0
On Tuesday morning the Miami Herald carried a story about a Local Man arrested in Florida's Polk County for breaking into a stranger's house to make himself dinner and have a bath rather than going home to face his wife after an argument. The Local Man, who has no criminal history, was apprehended just as he was settling in for a relaxing soak. He has since been charged with burglary. So on balance, and while an entirely tempting, innovative option, this is probably not the way to go. Pressure makes diamonds, as online graft-influencers like to say. But it also makes the average human yearn for a little quiet space. That same Tuesday morning Trent Alexander-Arnold , who could probably also do with a break from the white noise, was taking his second Real Madrid training session in the 90-degree heat of The Gardens North County District Park, a hundred miles southeast of Polk, and in a team where the entire experience can at times resemble an unceasing spousal argument. Madrid are the most relentlessly exposed football club on the planet, huge even in a place where it feels at times as if nobody actually knows the Club World Cup is going on just up the road. Towards the end of Saturday's opening ceremony a Fifa-branded wailing wall of hope was wheeled out on to the pitch at the Hard Rock Stadium, trailed by a gaggle of children, who then solemnly implanted 32 lighted bricks bearing the badges of every competing club. READ MORE Real Madrid in training in Florida. Photograph: Chandan Khanna/Getty The big screen lingered on one badge only, the Madrid emblem, drawing huge, shrill cheers from a crowd that had to that point seemed interested only in Lionel Messi doing his Elvis in Vegas act. Welcome to the world, Trent, as we may now call him, a place where every moment is public, every second in the branded nylon out there to be hungrily consumed. The Hard Rock is also the venue for Madrid's opening game against Al-Hilal on Wednesday in the brain-mangling heat of a (frankly insane) 3pm kick-off. Before then it is to be hoped there is space to take a few breaths, because this will surely be the most scrutinised preseason debut any footballer has faced, globally streamed, instantly consumed and analysed. In America the sun rises every day, as Ronald Reagan pointed out, accurately. But it tends also to bring quite a bit of light and heat with it. There is something else too. For all the hype and hopeful talk, one thing is true: the evidence is that he will probably fail. This is not a criticism, more an assessment of the balance of facts. There are also competing positives. Madrid have a huge wealth of talent plus a very good new manager. The early sessions with the team have been encouragingly moreish. The chat among the Spanish journalists who follow Madrid is that Trent has tended to trail after Jude Bellingham 'like the new kid at school', and there was something tender about the first glimpse of Alexander-Arnold in the rondo, out there surrounded by all those faces, Luka, Kylian, Vini, trying to control a ball on plastic grass, like some recurring anxiety nightmare. But his own verdict was encouragingly plain: 'It's high quality, the ball moves very fast. It's a lot different to what I'm used to.' And the optics are good. He's a proper athlete, not just a mobile passing brain, impressive physically, with a grace and power that aren't always evident on TV. Trent in sleeveless Madrid training gear looks starry, handsome, easy in his movements. Speaking Spanish early on is also very smart, the hala Madrid -la stuff, the serviceable accent. The 'rebranding' as Trent is a nice idea, a New Me, a post-breakbreak-upvention. Trent12 posing in front of Madrid's massed European Cups looked disarmingly relaxed. He has already lifted that pot you know. He has already done terrible things to Barcelona. The new kid has moves too. But there is also one great unanswered question. Is Alexander-Arnold actually a transferable commodity? He is both a very good player and a very strange one. This is not like bolting on an orthodox centre-half or a goal-sniffing number 9. Alexander-Arnold was brilliant for Liverpool in a highly specialised role. And there is so far no evidence, aged 26, that this can be transplanted. Trent Alexander-Arnold celebrates with the Premier League trophy when at Liverpool. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA Wire All of his professional success has been for one club under one manager: Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool, that system, three hard-running midfielders inside him, empowered to lean only into his strengths. The Arne Slot season was decent, so-so, a fudge. Either side Alexander-Arnold has never played for any other club, never managed to succeed with England. He has only been his best self in one shirt, under one manager, at the club he grew up with. It is easy, from this starting point, to see only the darker clouds. Klopp drew extraordinary returns out of Alexander-Arnold's creative, high-precision passing. But we remember also the tendency to switch off, the good, competent defending interspersed with moments of no defending at all. Some will suggest no Englishman has ever really succeeded at Madrid, aside from Steve McManaman, a different kind of player, and probably David Beckham, El Jefe de Miami . There is another more structural problem. Madrid don't just have a new manager they have an entirely new type of manager. In Xabi Alonso the club of vibes, energy, imperial freedoms, have appointed a hard systems coach. Basically, Kylian is going to have to do things now. How's that going to work out? This is also nuanced. Alonso is not an aura-dad in the Carlo Ancelotti mould. He's also not a pure number-wanging technocrat. He's a blend of these personas, a supercool systems guy, aura and numbers. He's got nice tailoring. He's also got an iPad. For all that, two things are undeniably true. First, the Madrid squad is not instantly suited to replicating the Bayer Leverkusen style, which featured exceptionally disciplined pressing, learned patterns, brutal periods of running and resilient defence. And second, Alonso obviously knows this. He knows the club and the players. He knows the task here is not to go Full Amorim, to adapt and integrate. For all the pre-analysis nobody actually knows how Alonso is going to embrace this point of tension. Like Trent he faces the associated challenges of the step up to this stage, a manager who will basically spend his first few months trying to juggle a bowl of fruit while also putting out a minor kitchen fire and making soufflé for 500 paying guests. But there are also good points for Alexander-Arnold in this. Much has been made of Alonso's Leverkusen formation. But at its best this was only ever really a starting point, an armature for a controlled fluidity, rotation, drilled overloads. And the fact is wing-backs/full-backs were key to that success. Alonso drew his flank players into the central rotation. He had dribbling on one side, passing smarts on the other. Perhaps the best early model for Trent in Madrid is as a kind of right-sided Álex Grimaldo, freed up to use his creative passing, to spark the transitions, to move into the centre. It is clearly also a good thing that Mbappé will start on the left. Nobody has been able to make him run backwards. But perhaps Trent can make him go the other way, his excellent diagonal passing into the Mbappé channel an obvious point of interest. Madrid's new No 12 is very, very good at providing creative direction for speedy players in front of him. Make the midfield work, make those players fit and understand their roles, and there is an opportunity for some pretty decent chemistry here. The only real issue is time. As in: you don't get any. The same goes for margin for error, forgiveness, latitude, even when the urge to crawl off and hide in someone else's bathtub is at its most profound. This why even the opening act in Miami feels vital, the first step in a high-wire act, and a first chance to prove the Trent identity, always a little butterfly-ish, can flourish in that unforgiving heat. – Guardian
The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
Damien Duff & Stephen Kenny offer strong take on Drogheda United's exclusion from Europa Conference League
DAMIEN DUFF and Stephen Kenny had different takes on the match between their sides - but were united in their sympathy for Drogheda United. Duff's Shelbourne inflicted St Pat's first home defeat in 12 months 2 Shelbourne beat Pat's 1-0 at Richmond Park 2 United's appeal to CAS was rejected yesterday The Reds boss reckoned his side deserved the win for how they played with the ball in the first half and without it in the second whilst Kenny reckoned his team's efforts after the break deserved a reward. But both men were in agreement that it was rough on Kevin Doherty and his players to be excluded from Europe after Drogheda fell foul of Uefa rules which prevents clubs with the same owner participating in the same competition. Duff said: 'I'm gutted for them, gutted for them, for the league. For Kevin, he's a great guy. A good ex-Shels man. 'There's a lot of players there that I'm really, really fond of. They mightn't be fond of me letting them go. But I am, even Ryan Brennan. I let him go and there's always been that bit of friction. Read More On Irish Football 'I want to see his quality and the servant he's been to the league, to Shelbourne, to Drogheda. I want to see him in Europe. 'So we always think - I don't know the ins and outs - that common sense will prevail, here, come on, let them in. But it hasn't. So I'm gutted for them and I'm gutted for the league also.' Kenny added: 'They've earned it by winning the Cup, and the multi-club model, whether you're in favour of it or not, there are examples, of course, where the clubs have managed to bypass the rules for whatever reason on technical grounds. 'The fact that no other club can take their place, it's a blow for Irish football but the main people it affects, obviously, are Drogheda, and I'm sure they're disappointed.' Most read in Football Shels had failed to win any of their six previous away games before Monday's victory but Duff was in no doubt it was deserved. He said: 'I think both sides of the game is why we deserved to win the game. We were brilliant in the first half with the ball. We showed our quality, showed why we're champions. Former Man Utd star subbed off after 20 minutes then red carded on bench in nightmare Club World Cup debut 'And the second half, here, couldn't string two passes together. "It was the other side of us, of champions and of how to win a football match. Just working hard for each other, connected, defensively sound. "I don't think they cut through us. So there's a beauty in it. There's a beauty in it for sure and we take great pride in it. 'We felt calm without the ball. That was the other reason why I think we deserve to win.' KENNY PERSPECTIVE Kenny, who briefly had Duff as a coach during his time as Ireland boss, had a different view. He said: 'I think the second half was absolute waves of attack. 'Shelbourne kept the ball in their own half a little bit early in the match, but we were never under any pressure and obviously the goal was a deflected effort. 'From our point of view, we should have dealt with it better. And after that, there was just one half chance, that was it, really. 'So, to lose the game on that is very, very difficult to accept. 'In the second half. I thought we showed a lot of quality in our passing and good individual wing play and I was just disappointed that we couldn't score, couldn't get that elusive finish. "We looked like we were in quite a high number of times, so we're disappointed. 'We knew a win would have put us in second place, but we didn't win, and that's ultimately down to ourselves.'
