Will we see a repeat Cup winner this year, or will Connor McDavid finally win his first?
After months of waiting, the Stanley Cup Finals are finally here, with a rematch set to take place between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers. This will be the first game in this finals matchup between these two teams, so let’s take a look at how they stack up against one another!
Edmonton Oilers
Edmonton’s road to the Cup Finals has been interesting, to say the least. On paper, they had a pretty easy go at it, as they’ve won all of their series in either five or six games. However, their journey has been anything but easy, especially in the goaltending department. Stuart Skinner was benched in the Oilers’ first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings, and Calvin Pickard became Edmonton’s starter for a little bit, until he got injured, unfortunately. That injury forced them to play Skinner again, and since then, he’s been more than servicable for this Edmonton team.
Edmonton’s superstars have continued to show up and do what they do in the playoffs as well, with Leon Draisaitl having recorded 25 points in 16 playoff games up till this point, and Connor McDavid having recorded 26 points in 16 playoff games as well. If and when everything is going well for the Oilers, they are very hard to beat. If the goaltending woes that they experienced earlier in these playoffs rear their ugly head, I have a tough time believing they’ll have an easy time with this Florida Panthers team.
Projected Lineup
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Connor McDavid – Corey Perry
Evander Kane – Leon Draisaitl – Kasperi Kapanen
Trent Frederic – Adam Henrique – Connor Brown
Vasily Podkolzin – Mattias Janmark – Viktor Arvidsson
Mattias Ekholm – Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse – Brett Kulak
Jake Walman – John Klingberg
Stuart Skinner
Florida Panthers
Compared to Edmonton, Florida has arguably had the harder path to get here, having to go through Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Carolina, with the Toronto series going to seven games. Despite that, the Panthers have answered just about every single obstacle that has come their way throughout these playoffs so far.
Everything about this Panthers team is just consistent, reliable and good. There haven’t been questions about their goaltending to the level that there’s been about Edmonton’s, and their star players always seem to show up in the biggest moments, no matter what. I’m very excited to see if we have a repeat of last season’s Cup finals, or if we crown a new winner instead, as this should be an extremely interesting matchup once again.
Projected Lineup
Evan Rodrigues – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Jesper Boqvist – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt – Dmitry Kulikov
What are your predictions for this Stanley Cup Finals? Let us know in the comments below!