Latest news with #EvanderKane
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Edmonton Oilers eye revenge in Stanley Cup Final after rallying past Dallas Stars in conference final
The Edmonton Oilers advanced to their second straight Stanley Cup Final as they defeated the Dallas Stars 6-3 in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Thursday night. The Oilers will look for revenge against the Florida Panthers after last season's heartbreaking Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Final. It took Edmonton one less game in this year's Western Conference Final rematch to dispatch Dallas. Last season, the Oilers beat the Stars 4-2 in the Western Conference Final before moving on. The Oilers raced out to an early lead on Thursday, as they scored on their first two shots. Corey Perry and Mattias Janmark beat Stars goalie Jake Oettinger to give Edmonton a quick 2-0 lead. Dallas head coach Peter DeBoer didn't waste any time and pulled Oettinger from the game after he allowed the two goals. However, the switch to backup goalie Casey DeSmith didn't yield much better results. Edmonton's Jeff Skinner beat DeSmith for a goal right after he replaced Oettinger and gave the Oilers a 3-0 lead with his first goal of the playoffs. The Stars managed to cut the lead to 3-2, but Connor McDavid scored a beautiful breakaway goal to make the game 4-2 and shift the momentum back towards the Oilers. Stars forward Jason Robertson scored to make it 4-3, but Oilers forward Evander Kane responded with a goal to regain the Oilers' two-goal lead. Edmonton's Kasperi Kapanen put the finishing touch on the win with an empty-net goal as time was winding down to make it 6-3. This is the third consecutive season the Stars have lost in the Western Conference Final. "You've got to keep knocking on the door," DeBoer said. "We chased every single game in this series, and that's a tough way to play hockey against that team. It was the story of the entire series, but the fourth goal, Connor's goal ... the puck bounces into the neutral zone, he's coming off the bench, he's not missing that. It's game over." At the Oilers' celebration after the game, McDavid made sure to touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, the trophy awarded to the Western Conference champion; last year, he superstitiously opted not to touch it, but they went on to lose in the Stanley Cup Final. "It's pretty obvious, I think," McDavid said about what was different from the end of last year's Western Conference Final. "Don't touch it last year, you don't win. Touch it this year, hopefully we win." In last season's Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers nearly pulled off one of the most improbable comebacks in sports history. Edmonton fell behind 3-0 in the series but battled back to force a Game 7, which they eventually lost 2-1. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final is set to begin Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oilers vs Florida Panthers: Full 2025 Schedule & 3 Bold Series Predictions
EDMONTON – Get ready Oil Country, the Stanley Cup Final is coming for you. After the Edmonton Oilers smashed the Dallas Stars' dreams of competing in the final playoff round, the NHL announced the schedule for the Cup Final. Advertisement Bookmark The Hockey News Edmonton Oilers team site to never miss the latest news, game-day coverage, and more. For the second consecutive season, the Oilers will face the Florida Panthers, winner-take-all. Trending Oilers Stories EXCLUSIVE: Mark Messier On Oilers, Budweiser, His Future & More EXCLUSIVE: Mark Messier On Oilers, Budweiser, His Future & More EDMONTON – Mark Messier loves Edmonton. Oilers 2025 Playoff Tickets: Buy Them Now With Pre-Sale Oilers Secretive Of New Victory Song, "Pink Pony Club" If Oilers Win Tonight, Here's When They Play Next Oilers Jeff Skinner Reaches New Milestone Messier Would Love Oilers To 'Bring It Full Circle' Messier Would Love Oilers To 'Bring It Full Circle' EDMONTON – 'It was incredible to be in the rink in Game Six last year.' Oilers vs Panthers Full 2025 Series Schedule All games are posted in Mountain Time. Italics are used for games that will only be played if necessary. Bold denotes home games. Advertisement Game 1: June 4 (Wednesday) - Florida at Edmonton - 6 PM Game 2: June 6 (Friday) - Florida at Edmonton - 6 PM Game 3: June 9 (Monday) - Edmonton at Florida - 6 PM Game 4: June 12 (Thursday) - Edmonton at Florida - 6 PM Game 5: June 14 (Saturday) - Florida at Edmonton - 6 PM Game 6: June 17 (Tuesday) - Edmonton at Florida - 6 PM Game 7: June 20 (Friday) - Florida at Edmonton - 6 PM 3 Stanley Cup Final Series Predictions A new series needs a new series of predictions. This might be the second year that these teams are facing each other, but this is not last year's Edmonton Oilers. Here are my three major series predictions: Oilers Won't Go Down 0-3 The Oilers have not lost more than two games in a row for this entire playoff run. Since losing their first two games against the Los Angeles Kings, they have only lost two total games. Advertisement They have demonstrated a calmness and maturity that they didn't have last year. Those attributes will serve them well in the Cup Final. And there is no way that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl allow their team to be put in the same unfortunate situation. Evander Kane Will Be Evander Kane It's time for the Oilers to raise some Kane…that is, Evander Kane. Last year, Kane was virtually invisible in the series against the Panthers. He only played two games (Games 1 & 2), recording two hits and one block in 25 total minutes of ice time. That's not going to be good enough this year. Kane seemingly took a backseat during the Dallas Stars series. I suspect he might have struggled to find a way to get physically engaged. There should be no struggles to get physically engaged with the likes of former Calgary Flames forwards Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk. Oilers Will Get The Last Laugh My final prediction: the Oilers will win the Stanley Cup. There is enough different about this year's Oilers that they won't fail in the final twice. Oilers in five. Add us to your Google News favourites, and never miss a story.
CBC
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Edmonton Oilers back in Stanley Cup final after Game 5 win over Dallas Stars
Oilers' firepower outscores Dallas 6-3 to close conference final Image | Oilers Stars Hockey Caption: The Edmonton Oilers' Kasperi Kapanen, left, and Leon Draisaitl, right, celebrate Evander Kane's third-period goal against the Dallas Stars in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. (Gareth Patterson/The Associated Press) The Edmonton Oilers were teetering on their heels. The Dallas Stars' push felt relentless. The crowd inside a raucous American Airlines Center could sense their team was on the cusp of climbing out of a deep hole. Like he has so many times, Connor McDavid stepped up in a big moment Thursday — and pushed his group to another Stanley Cup final. Edmonton's superstar captain took advantage of a fortunate bounce before moving in alone and dekeing Stars goaltender Casey DeSmith to the ice on an electric forehand move with Dallas centre Roope Hintz all over him for a 4-2 lead. "My hockey brain goes to, 'That's probably one of the nicest goals I've seen him score,"' said Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl, who has grown up in the NHL alongside McDavid. "Just the whole situation, how it played out, who he had coming up behind him. That's a big-time play. There's only one player in the world that can do that in that moment. "We're very fortunate to have him on our side." Defending champion Panthers advance to 3rd straight Stanley Cup final after eliminating Hurricanes McDavid's goal with 5:32 left in the middle period killed the home side's momentum in what would wind up being a 6-3 final to clinch the Oilers' second consecutive Western Conference crown and set up a rematch with the Florida Panthers in the title series. "Incredible," said Edmonton defenceman Darnell Nurse, whose team built an early 3-0 advantage before Dallas eventually cut its deficit to one. "The big moments, he always steps up and makes such a difference for our team. We're so fortunate to have him. That was a goal and an example of a big player making a big play in a big moment." "He's not missing that," Stars head coach Pete DeBoer lamented. "It's game over." McDavid, who grabbed hold of the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl after not touching the trophy last year when the Oilers also beat the Stars to claim the West, added an assist to become the second-fastest player in league history to reach 100 in the post-season behind only Wayne Gretzky. The 28-year-old also joined The Great One as the second player to register at least three separate playoffs with 20 assists. All the talk, however, was about the goal. "That's a Connor McDavid kind of play," said veteran winger Corey Perry, who will play in his sixth final. "That's just the player he is." McDavid and his Oilers were left heartbroken last June after coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the final against the Panthers with a trio of victories — largely thanks to No. 97's record-breaking performance — only to come up just short in Game 7. The Richmond Hill, Ont., product then helped Canada to a victory at the Four Nations Face-Off in February with an overtime goal against the United States before leading the Oilers, who were down 2-0 to the Los Angeles Kings in the opening round this spring, on another memorable run. "Last couple of years has been some of the most fun I've had playing hockey," said the No. 1 pick at the 2015 draft. "It's going to be an exciting month." McDavid, whose Oilers will host Game 1 against Florida in the Alberta capital on Wednesday, was asked about his ability to be the player his teammates look to at crunch time. "We've prepared to be in this position for a long time," he said. "These are more normal positions for us now. The moment doesn't feel big, it doesn't feel anything other than hockey, and that allows you to make your play." Head coach Kris Knoblauch has seen McDavid's magic since he was a teenager when the pair were together with the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters more than a decade ago. "Alleviates a lot of that pressure," Knoblauch said of Thursday's breakaway brilliance. "I've seen Connor do it numerous times." Edmonton will now pivot to Florida, which rolled through the Carolina Hurricanes in five games to take the East title. "I think we're better," McDavid said of this Oilers iteration compared to 12 months ago. "We're better for it going through last year. It was a great learning experience, and it's really driven us all year. "This run has felt different." They will be hoping for a different result. In Edmonton, during the second intermission, fans watching from the Moss Pit were ushered inside Rogers Place, after Environment Canada issued an alert about a "very dangerous" thunderstorm that could produce "destructive wind gusts." A spokesperson for Oilers owner OEG Inc. told CBC News that getting fans inside was part of its safety procedures. Personnel set up a screen in Ford Hall so those fans could keep watching the game.
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Edmonton Oilers back in Cup final after Game 5 win over Dallas Stars
Edmonton · Breaking The Edmonton Oilers' Kasperi Kapanen, left, and Leon Draisaitl, right, celebrate Evander Kane's third-period goal against the Dallas Stars in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. (Gareth Patterson/The Associated Press) The Edmonton Oilers are back in the Stanley Cup final. The team completed a gentleman's sweep, beating the Dallas Stars 6-3 in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. More to come.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
LeBrun: Oilers GM Stan Bowman on ‘tense moments,' his goalies and adding final roster pieces
EDMONTON — It feels like much longer, but it was just over a month ago, on the night of April 25, that the Edmonton Oilers entered the third period feeling like their season was very much on the line. They trailed 2-0 in their first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Kings, and trailed 4-3 entering the final period of Game 3. Advertisement That was a stressful time in Rogers Place, particularly in the Oilers' management box. 'No question, there were some tense moments there,' Oilers general manager Stan Bowman, able to smile about it all four weeks later, said Monday as he began an interview with The Athletic. 'We were trailing in the series, trailing in the game. You know, going down 3-0 (in a series) is never a good story. But I'm an optimistic guy, so until we lose that game, I'm still hopeful. But of course it's concerning. Things can change in a moment.' Did they ever. Evander Kane and Evan Bouchard scored 10 seconds apart to put the Oilers up 5-4, Connor McDavid and Connor Brown added empty-netters and, well, in some ways the season felt saved. 'With our team, we needed that sort of moment to turn and to gain that momentum,' Bowman said. 'And then once that happens, I feel like your confidence goes up a little bit, and you just start playing a little bit better. But even the next game was a really tough game. I think once we won that Game 4, then I felt like, 'OK.' And we played an excellent Game 5 in L.A.' True enough, the Oilers needed two third-period goals from the 'Bouch Bomb,' Evan Bouchard, with the second one tying Game 4 at 3-3 with 29 seconds left and setting up Leon Draisaitl's overtime heroics. That's when Bowman felt the Oilers could breathe and play their game moving forward. And they've really never looked back since. 'Sometimes, it just takes a moment in time to shift the momentum for your team, and the belief you can get things done,' Bowman said. 'Once that happens, your confidence grows.' What's difficult to fathom, looking back at those moments a month ago, is just how close the Oilers came to running out of time to make all the puzzle pieces finally fit together. This team, which beat L.A. and Vegas and now leads a powerhouse Dallas Stars team 2-1 in the Western Conference final, was never on the ice together during the regular season. And they're still waiting on Mattias Ekholm to return, which should be any day now. Advertisement 'We had a lot of guys that hadn't played a lot of hockey heading into Game 1 (of the playoffs),' Bowman said. 'It wasn't just the injured, but like McDavid and Draisaitl and Hyman, they hadn't played the last couple of weeks of the season, either. So we had all these guys who hadn't played much hockey heading into that Game 1 of the L.A. series. And I think it showed.' John Klingberg, Evander Kane and Trent Frederic were shaking off the rust, too. There were lots of moving parts trying to come together in time for the postseason. 'We had no idea really what we had, as far as lines or who was going to play together. You add that up and I think it took us some time to work our way in,' Bowman said. 'Now, here we are, we've built a little rhythm with our group. Also the players have gotten their confidence. It's a totally different team.' It is similar in some ways to the Florida Panthers, who dealt with injuries and basically tried to survive the last month of the regular season and then hope they could put it all back together when it mattered. In the Panthers' case, they hit the ground running in the playoffs, winning the first two games of the first round in Tampa. The Oilers needed a few games to find their bearings. It shows just how razor-thin the margins are that Edmonton got it together just in time, before the L.A. series got away from them. The pieces were there, but the Oilers had to wait seven months or so to see the puzzle come together. 'It goes to show,' Bowman said, 'that not only our players, but our coaches, have done an excellent job finding formulas that can get you through to the next game, to build up some momentum, to let the players work their way into the shape that you need to be in, in order to go on a long run.'' It was hardly a secret, even back in the fall, that the Oilers were going to try to bolster the blue line when they could. But I know I'm among a lot of observers who figured they would focus on a defensive, shutdown type. Instead, Bowman added two puck-movers in Klingberg and Jake Walman, with both moves surprising people to some degree. Advertisement And both moves are paying big dividends now, at the most important time of the year. 'That was something that struck me early in the season,' Bowman said in explaining why he went that route. 'We had a slow start, we weren't playing great and we were struggling to score, actually. Our power play wasn't really clicking in October. But the one thing I noticed early on was that I felt we needed … like the strength of our team is that we have some high-powered forwards that can really score. But in order for them to be at their best, I think if you can complement them with guys that can get them the puck at the right times. I felt like we didn't have enough of that as we were constituted early in the year. We have good players, but they just have different attributes. 'So that was the reason that we focused early on, on Klingberg. We started talking to him in November, knowing he wouldn't be back (from injury) for a while,' added Bowman. 'But that was the style of player that I thought would really complement our group. Of course, you think of the defensive side, but I thought we defended well as a team. I think our coaches do a good job structuring it where we don't spend a ton of time in the D-zone. But then that moment where you stop a play and you got to transition the puck — who's good at doing that — that was the reason we were focused on Klingberg.'' And then the Oilers doubled down on that with Walman before the trade deadline. 'Walman is along the same lines, because I believed in the group we had on the defensive side. I felt if we could add to it, this was sort of the look that I was hoping would come to be,' Bowman said. 'Things don't always work the way you envision them. This one did, in the sense that these guys have added a lot to our attack and they've also been good partners.' That surprised Bowman, because he didn't envision Walman and Klingberg playing together. 'But that's a credit to (assistant coach) Paul Coffey for trying different things and finding something that seems to work well,' he said. Advertisement Let's be real. The fact that the Oilers are two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final without having Ekholm yet in these playoffs cannot be understated as an achievement. All of which points to the job their six blueliners have done without him — but also the entire team. 'Well, I think it shows we've had a lot of different contributions,' Bowman said. 'Lately, it's been our goaltender. He's taken a lot of criticism. But the goaltending in general. Calvin Pickard came in and played great and won some huge games, and then Stuart (Skinner). But also we've had a lot of depth scoring.' Of course, McDavid and Draisaitl have had major impacts as always, Bowman added, but it's been more of a team approach. 'Which has allowed us to be, I would say, harder to game plan against, maybe, than in the past where all of the scoring was concentrated in a few players,' Bowman said. 'Now I think we look at our team — where maybe you shut down those guys for a few periods but other groups are stepping up. That's what ultimately could lead your team to having success.' As Bowman mentioned, both goalies have had key moments during this run. All of which goes back to something Bowman told me during a February interview, in which he said he had no plans to upgrade the goaltending ahead of the March 7 trade deadline. That wasn't met with enthusiasm from some segments of the Oilers' fan base. But Bowman was steadfast in his belief that it wasn't an area he needed to attempt to upgrade. 'No, I mean, you talk to the players and you talk to the coaches, they have a lot of confidence in these guys,' Bowman said. 'At the end of the day, the players decide this, right? It's the guys that are on the ice, and they have confidence in the guys we have, both in Pickard and Skinner. I think when you have a belief from your team that they're going to get the job done for you, then you don't have to focus on that exclusively. Advertisement 'So a lot of it just goes to the belief in our team,' he added. 'We didn't want to be a team that relies on just one thing to win. We wanted to have a few different ways to win. I think we've seen that in these playoffs, we've won a variety of different styles of game, and I think that's what you need to have success.' And, in reality, there was no top-10 NHL goalie available on the trade market. There was no one Bowman felt was a guaranteed upgrade over what they had. 'The goaltending is a very interesting position,' Bowman said. 'On the one hand, it's very important, but on the other hand, it's not like there's 30 No. 1 goalies in the world. There's a handful, and then there's other guys who can do the job you need them to do. Across the league, you're looking at that.' As we wrapped up our interview on Monday while the Oilers practiced, I asked Bowman what he had learned about this team since taking over last summer, now that he's got a better handle on the players, especially given how they navigated some ups and downs all season. 'I think it all starts at the top with your leaders, Connor and Leon and Nuge and Hyman and Ekholm. Those guys were really very, very consistent all year long,' Bowman said. 'I think when you have a group of players at that talent level that are so consistent in their performance … Like, you can sometimes have some guys down in the lineup that are consistent and they bring it every night, but they don't do enough to impact the game. But the guys I just mentioned, they're your top players and (when) they're consistently bringing it, then you have the ability to weather the storm when there's going to be ups and downs. 'Because you know you have that every night,' Bowman added. 'Those guys make such a difference. Not only with how they play and score or defend, but just their impact on the rest of the team. Great leaders, great teammates, guys that everyone else looks up to and believes in.' Another thing Bowman wanted to add was about the coaching staff. Advertisement 'I've been really impressed with their performance this year,' Bowman said. 'To be able to stay composed and not get rattled — we had a lot of challenges throughout the year, but I think Kris (Knoblauch) deserves a lot of credit for the way that he managed this group. And he's got a really good knack for adjustments, not wholesale changes but in-game adjustments, game-to-game adjustments, and I think he gets the most out of the players. 'So that's something that I don't think gets enough attention: the job that our coaching staff has done to get us where we are today. There's a lot of work ahead of us. But they've put us in a good spot to keep pushing forward.'
