After going up 3-0, the Edmonton Oilers battled back to force a game 7, before the Florida Panthers defended home ice and won the 2024 Stanley Cup with a score of 2-1.
After a nearly historic finals run for the Oilers, the Florida defense shut down playoff scoring leader Connor McDavid to only two shots on goal in the final two games of the series. This was crucial coming off McDavid’s back to back four point games to extend the series beyond what was looking to be a Panthers sweep.
Connor McDavid did become the sixth player and second non-goalie to earn the Conn Smythe playoff MVP trophy while a member of the losing team.
To start the series, the Panthers jumped out to a dominant 1-0 behind a 3-0 performance. Goals came from Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues, and Eetu Luostarinen. Sergei Bobrovsky had a masterful game in the goal making 32 saves, even making saves during a 30 second period where he lost his stick.
Heading into game 2, the Oilers came out fired up. On Florida’s home ice, they took a 1-0 lead and held it until halfway through the second period. That is where Florida flipped the energy and took over during the third period. Tying it up with a Niko Mikkola goal during the second and a pair of goals from Rodriguez to take a 3-1 lead. This led to an empty net goal by Aaron Ekblad to cap off another strong performance at 4-1 before the series headed to Edmonton.
Game 3 is where the series started to take a turn. Florida continued its hot series going up 1-0 in the first period behind Sam Reinhart’s goal. Shortly into the second period, Warren Foegele tied the game up before the Panthers jumped out to a 4-1 lead by the end of the period behind goals by Vladimir Tarasenko, Sam Bennett, and Aleksander Barkov. The Oilers tried to battle back in the third with Philip Broberg and Ryan McLeod scoring two goals, but this momentum flip did not come early enough with the Panthers winning 4-3 and going up 3-0 in the series.
Building off the momentum at the end of game 3, the Oilers put up a dominant performance to extend the series to a fifth game. Leading the game off, Mattias Janmark scored a shorthanded goal before Adam Henrique extended the lead to 2-0. Tarasenko responded a few minutes later to cut the lead to 1, before the Oilers began to break the game open. Holloway scored to make it 3-1 heading into the period break. McDavid, Darnell Nurse, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored in the 2nd to make the score 6-1. Following the Nurse goal, Paul Maurice, the head coach of the Panthers elected to replace Bobrovsky in goal with Anthony Stolarz. Stolarz then gave up a goal to Nugent-Hopkins in the 2nd period and two goals in the 3rd to Holloway and McLeod. The final score reached 8-1 and led to a massive momentum swing in the series before it headed back to Florida.
The Oilers did not let off the gas in Game 5. 5:30 into the 1st period, Connor Brown opened up scoring with a shorthanded goal. Within the first five minutes of the 2nd period, both Zach Hyman and McDavid scored to extend their lead to 3-0. Tkachuk quickly responded to cut the lead to 3-1, but Corey Perry took advantage of a power play to make it 4-1. Nearly immediately, Rodrigues put it into the net for it to be 4-2 heading into the 3rd period. A couple minutes into the period, Oliver Ekman-Larsson closed the gap to make it 4-3. In the last few seconds, McDavid scored an empty net goal for the final dagger to send the series back to Edmonton for game 6.
Keeping the pedal on the metal, the Oilers win in dominant fashion with a final of 5-1. The Oilers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the 1st period behind Foegeles third goal in the playoffs. This was followed up by goals from Henrique and Hyman to build a 3-0 lead heading into the 3rd period. Trying to fight back, Barkov started the period with a goal to make it 3-1, but McLeod and Nurse closed the game out with two empty net goals 12 seconds apart for a final score of 5-1, forcing a game 7 to decide the title.
For the 18th time since the Stanley Cup final switched to a best-of-seven format in 1939, the series went to a game 7. Heading into this game, there were some major storylines for both teams if they were to take home the cup. First of all, no matter which team won the title, the name Evan will be on the Stanley Cup for the first time. The Oilers were chasing their first Stanley Cup win in nearly 35 years and the Panthers were chasing their organizations first championship.
All of this was to be decided in this final game. The game started off hot. At 4:27 in the first period, Rodrigues took a shot on goal that Verhaeghe redirected between Skinner’s legs for the first goal of the game. The Oilers responded just over two minutes later when Cody Ceci brought the puck around his own goal before passing it up three quarters of the ice to Janmark for a fast break where he shot the puck into the top of the goal to even the score at 1-1. The score stayed even for nearly the next thirty minutes of gametime until Reinhart put one into the back of the net to take the 2-1 lead. The Panthers kept the defense up and Bobrovsky locked down the net for the remaining time against the Oilers to win the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.
