SUNRISE, FL – The Florida Panthers are back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.
After last season’s rally from a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final ended in Game 7 heartbreak for the Edmonton Oilers, their 2025 rematch against the defending champions ultimately ended in similar fashion on Tuesday night with a 5-1 defeat in Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena, falling 4-2 in the series.
“We lost to a really good team,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “Nobody quit. Nobody threw the towel in. They’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”
Forward Sam Reinhart scored four goals for the Panthers in their opportunity to lift the Stanley Cup on home ice for the second straight year, becoming the first player since Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard for the Montreal Canadiens in 1952 to score four goals in a Stanley Cup Final match.
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was excellent to backstop the Panthers to another championship with 24 clutch saves, giving up his only goal to winger Vasily Podkolzin when Florida was leading 5-0 with 4:42 remaining in the third period. Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner stopped 20 of 23 shots in the defeat.
Centre Sam Bennett was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner with his playoff-leading 15 goals.
“They played a consistent game. They didn’t change once through the whole series,” Skinner said. “I felt like our game was up and down a little bit here and there, and that’s how they play. They play that game all year, and it goes into the playoffs and they stick to it. They do the exact same thing every night, and in our game, we weren’t as consistent as they were.”
After coming so close to accomplishing their ultimate goal and suffering heartbreak for the second straight year, it’s hard to begin thinking about next season right now if you’re the Oilers, but they’ll look to regroup and restrengthen in the summer before trying to do it all over again in the 2025-26 NHL season.
We thank you for everything this season, Oil Country.
We’ll be back soon.
“Still a lot of confidence and belief,” McDavid said of his team. “I don’t think people thought we were gonna make it this far. We obviously believed, but came up just short again.”
“We became together at the right time. A lot of difficult circumstances coming down the stretch with injuries and guys fighting through things, and we just found a way to get here. We obviously didn’t find a way to get enough, but credit to a lot of guys.”
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