The 2024 Stanley Cup Final has the ingredients for an epic series: generational talents, shutdown defenders, contrasting coaches, mayhem-loving villains and storylines galore.
The Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers will play Game 1 at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS, CBC). No matter who wins the Cup, hockey can’t lose.
If it’s Edmonton, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl will hoist the Cup for the first time, taking their place among the Oilers’ list of legendary champions. In their first Cup Final since 2006, the Oilers will win it all for the first time since Mark Messier was their captain in 1990. Canada, where hockey means so much, will have its first champion since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
If it’s Florida, the Panthers will hoist the Cup for the first time. This team once struggled to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs and fill the building; now it’s in the Cup Final for the second straight season, stands packed. The Sunshine State, where hockey has grown so much, will have its third champion in five years after the Tampa Bay Lightning’s titles in 2020 and 2021.
McDavid and Draisaitl have seemed destined for this moment. The centers have four MVP trophies and six scoring titles between them. McDavid won the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP in 2017, 2021 and 2023 and the Art Ross as scoring champion in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Draisaitl won the Hart and Art Ross in 2020.
They are two of the greatest playoff scorers in NHL history. McDavid is averaging 1.58 points per game in his career, Draisaitl 1.56. Among players who have appeared in at least eight playoff games, only two have averaged more. Their names? Wayne Gretzky (1.84) and Mario Lemieux (1.61).
We could look back on this the way we look back on 1984, when Gretzky won his first of four championships with the Oilers, or 1991, when Lemieux won his first of back-to-back titles with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
McDavid leads the playoffs with 31 points (five goals, 26 assists) and has a shot at breaking Gretzky’s record for assists (31) in a playoff year set with the Oilers in 1988. Draisaitl is second in the playoffs with 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists).
Edmonton also has the playoffs’ leading goal-scorer, forward Zach Hyman (14), and highest-scoring defenseman, Evan Bouchard (27 points), who has a shot at breaking Paul Coffey’s record for assists (25) in a playoff year set with the Oilers in 1985.
The problem is that the Panthers have plenty of firepower themselves and have shown they can keep superstars off the score sheet in the playoffs. They’re scoring 3.24 goals per game and allowing 2.29. The Oilers are scoring 3.50 goals per game and allowing 2.61.
McDavid captains Edmonton, but Aleksander Barkov captains Florida. The center won the Selke Trophy this season when he was voted the NHL’s best defensive forward for the second time.
Florida also has Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling, perhaps the best defensive defense pair in the playoffs, and Sergei Bobrovsky, one of the top goalies in the League. He was voted the NHL’s best goalie in 2013 and 2017 and is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy this season.
The Panthers are a pain to play against. They’re deep. They’re physical. They can pin you in your end with their forecheck and pump shots on net. They can wear you down and stop your attack before it gets started.
Prepare for heat as early as Game 1, and not because the high temperature in Sunrise on Saturday is forecast to be 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Forward Matthew Tkachuk, who leads Florida with 19 points (five goals, 14 assists), played for the Calgary Flames, the Oilers’ archrivals, from 2016-22. Forward Sam Bennett played for the Flames from 2014-21. Each loves to stir it up, as does Oilers forward Corey Perry, who is in the Cup Final with his fifth team, an NHL record.
The coaches are polar opposites. Kris Knoblauch is an NHL rookie. He took over the Oilers on Nov. 12 and led them to the best record in the League the rest of the regular season (.703). Paul Maurice has coached 1,848 regular-season games, second to Scotty Bowman (2,141) in NHL history, and 130 playoff games. This is his third trip to the Cup Final, after going with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2002 and the Panthers last season. He’s still looking for his first championship.
Knoblauch is mild-mannered, soft-spoken. Maurice is a colorful quote machine, making his press conferences must-see TV.
There will be so much more to talk about. Each team has a No. 1 pick that has waited so long to win: forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Oilers (2011) and Ekblad of the Panthers (2014). Goalie Stuart Skinner and defenseman Brett Kulak of the Oilers are trying to win the Cup with their hometown team.
Dreams will come true. The only question is whose.
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2024-06-06 02:04:05Z
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