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2025 NHL Stanley Cup Finals Preview: Connor McDavid’s Greatness vs. Florida Panthers’ Repeat
> alex ovechkinConnor McDavidNHL
> alex ovechkinConnor McDavidNHL
The 2025 NHL Stanley Cup Finals are a rematch from last year when the Florida Panthers, in their third-straight Finals appearance, will try to repeat against the Edmonton Oilers, led by the incredible Connor McDavid. It’s the first rematch since 2008-09 when the Pittsburgh Penguins got some revenge on the Detroit Red Wings in a classic series.
This is only the fifth time in the expansion era where the Stanley Cup is a rematch from the previous season:
- 1968-69: The Montreal Canadiens swept the St. Louis Blues (2-0).
- 1977-78: The Montreal Canadiens swept the Boston Bruins (2-0).
- 1983-84: The New York Islanders completed their four-peat against the Edmonton Oilers in 1983, but Wayne Gretzky and company won their first title in 1984 (1-1).
- 2008-09: The Detroit Red Wings led 2-0 and 3-2 over the Pittsburgh Penguins in their repeat bid, but the Penguins rallied to win the series in Detroit in Game 7 after Marc-Andre Fleury’s incredible save in a 2-1 final (1-1).
Two sweeps followed by two splits, so we’ll see what the Oilers have in store for Florida as they try to win the first Stanley Cup for Canada since the Montreal Canadiens won in 1993. This incredible drought includes an 0-7 record in the Stanley Cup Finals for Canadian teams. This is technically a rematch between the last two Stanley Cup losers, too, with Florida falling to Vegas in 2023 before beating Edmonton in Game 7 last year.
You have historical greatness on both sides with the 3-year run the Panthers have been on in the postseason, and the Oilers have the star power of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl trying to win their first Stanley Cup in Year 10 together. Let’s break down the matchup and the championship narrative for this series, where the Oilers are a slight favorite (-128 at FanDuel) to win.
Table of Contents
A Most Unusual Path to This NHL Stanley Cup Finals Rematch
The Oilers (+800) and Panthers (+900) were the preseason favorites to win the Stanley Cup this season. While these teams are clearly not flukes, to say they were on the fast track to this rematch would be a lie.
The So-So 2024-25 Regular Season for Both Teams
The Oilers (101 points) and Panthers (98 points) both finished in third place in their respective divisions in the regular season:
- McDavid got off to a slow start and missed 15 games (some early, some late in the year) to injury as the Oilers ranked just No. 11 in SRS (11th in goals scored, 14th in goals against).
- The Panthers were statistically the best team in hockey a year ago thanks to the No. 1 ranking in goals allowed, but they fell to No. 7 in goals allowed this year, and they were only No. 10 in SRS with a middling scoring output.
- Other teams drew the headlines of this NHL season, including the statistical dominance of the Winnipeg Jets (116 points) in winning the Presidents’ Trophy, and Alex Ovechkin’s chase of surpassing Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record.
Edmonton and Florida both had to defeat the teams with the second and third-most points in the conferences this year in the playoffs, and they didn’t have home-ice advantage for any of the series. Ignoring the COVID-affected years, you have to go back to 2012 under the old playoff format to find the last Stanley Cup Finals with teams seeded this low in the playoffs. That year, the No. 8 Kings defeated the No. 6 Devils.
But both of these teams know how to win in the playoffs and are back in the Stanley Cup Finals in what could be a great series. It will be the Oilers with home-ice advantage in this series, which they didn’t have a year ago when they lost in Florida in Games 1, 2, and 7, scoring a combined 2 goals in those losses.
In case you forgot, Edmonton put on a great effort after falling behind 3-0 to even force Game 7. Their offense finally came to life with an 8-1 win in Game 4, then they scored 5 goals in Game 5, their only road win. They dominated Florida, 5-1, in Game 6, but in a predictably low-scoring battle in Game 7, the Panthers took a 2-1 lead in the second period and held on for their first ever championship.
What Changed (Or Didn’t) from Last Year’s NHL Stanley Cup Finals
This year, Edmonton largely retained its core, hoping a team that’s been to two conference finals and Game 7 of the Finals since 2022 had enough to finally get over the hump in the first full season for coach Kris Knoblauch. The only negative here is that Zach Hyman, one of Edmonton’s best wingers, had wrist surgery and is out for the rest of the season.
Florida lost some depth as champions often do, but it has largely returned the same core that’s been on this three-peat of Eastern Conference Finals for coach Paul Maurice. The Panthers traded in March for Boston veteran Brad Marchand, who has 14 points this postseason.
The Oilers have had some shaky Game 1s this postseason, allowing 6 goals in Game 1 losses to the Kings (first round) and Stars (WCF). However, they closed those series out with four straight wins, including a 2-0 comeback against LA. In between, they took care of Vegas 4-1, winning a pair of overtime games.
The Oilers are 12-1 this postseason when they allow no more than 4 goals (0-3 when they allow more than 4 goals). In 16 playoff games, they have three shutout wins and three other games where they allowed a single goal, something they did in just 7-of-25 playoff games last year.
The Panthers took care of Tampa Bay in five games in the first round. Like the Oilers, they also had to make a 2-0 comeback this postseason, doing so in the second round against Toronto. After taking a 3-2 lead, the Panthers lost Game 6, but fortunately, Toronto might be the worst bet in history to win a Game 7, and the Panthers dominated them in Toronto in a 6-1 win to complete the series win.
Against the Hurricanes, the Florida offense was on fire with 5 or 6 goals in every win, taking a 3-0 lead and eventually finishing things off in Game 5, winning all three games in Carolina.
The 2025 Panthers have already had five playoff games with at least 6 goals scored. Only the 2022 Avalanche (6 games), who won the Cup, had more such games in a playoff run since 1994. The 2025 Panthers are also 9-0 when they score at least 5 goals this postseason, which is tied with the 2023 Golden Knights (who beat Florida in the SCF) for the most such games in a postseason since 1994 with one round to go.
The Panthers are only 3-5 this postseason when they don’t score 5 goals, so maybe that’s their magic number in this series. But their offense is humming in a way we rarely see in the postseason anymore, and they’ve also had three shutout wins.
With that said, the Oilers (4.06) actually average more goals per game this postseason than the Panthers (3.88), and both are among the top four highest averages for any Stanley Cup teams since 1994:
Guess these teams saved their best for the playoffs. Hopefully, they’ll give us a couple more close finishes than their 7-game series had last year.
Connor McDavid and the Weight of Championship Expectations as the Face of the NHL
Look, you could blame Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, or, more appropriately, blame their cult of fans, but rings matter more than ever for today’s athletes. Their salaries are amazing, but at the end of the day, you play to win a championship. Until you have one on your resume, it’s going to feel incomplete, and you’re unlikely to get credit as the best of their era until you’ve won a championship (and usually multiple).
You can see that with the apprehension by many to fully embrace Peyton Manning and LeBron James, two generational talents who were hyped as No. 1 picks and franchise saviors, because it took them nine seasons before they won a championship. Even then, they don’t get as much “GOAT” respect as they deserve because their teams did not win more championships than they lost in the final round of the playoffs, even though they took their teams farther than anyone else likely would have in their position.
Meanwhile, NBA players like Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan, and NFL quarterbacks like Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Patrick Mahomes all won early and often to stake their claim among the best of all time.
Ring count always mattered to some degree. That’s how people viewed Bill Russell (11 rings) as the better player over Wilt Chamberlain (2 rings), who dominated basketball statistically in a way no other player ever has. He just didn’t have the loaded teams behind him that played defense like Russell had.
But ring count wasn’t always such a literal count – so cut and dry with no consideration of context. Today, Mahomes has to win seven or eight Super Bowls to surpass Brady in many people’s eyes (but not mine).
That wouldn’t fly back in the day when people had no problem calling Lakers great Jerry West by his nickname “Mr. Clutch” and making him the NBA logo even though he was 1-8 in the NBA Finals. Today, some won’t even consider LeBron the best of his era, because “Kobe and Duncan won more” and “5 > 4” is all they need and apparently all they care to remember from a quarter century of basketball.
Funny how Joe Montana never needed to win a fifth Super Bowl to be the GOAT. Quarterback Bart Starr was 9-1 in the playoffs and won five championships for the Packers; they just didn’t start calling them “Super Bowls” until his fourth in 1966. Montana won just as many Super Bowls as Terry Bradshaw, who was never in these discussions as the best quarterback or player ever.
There was a time when Michael Jordan could win six championships, and no one said he needed 11 to surpass Russell, who also won the same number of MVP awards (5) as MJ. Jordan also didn’t need a seventh to break his tie with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who also won more MVPs and was the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Yet, Jordan can still be the GOAT with six rings, because apparently, 20th-century math was just different.
Something did indeed change after the 1990s, and that was the proliferation of the internet, where message board arguments (and later blogs and social media platforms) are running around the clock to meet the demands for new content. Sports talk radio got replaced by anyone-can-make-them podcasts, and the TV networks leaned into hiring ex-athletes to yell at each other in expensive suits. The substance of their arguments is nowhere near as important as making sure some narrative is being pushed.
With the Oklahoma City Thunder about to start the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, the mainstream media talk isn’t about whether OKC’s youth and stockpile of draft picks can lead to a dynasty, or what a first title would mean for Hoosier nation after the most improbable NBA playoff run of all time. It’s “is SGA the best player in the world and better than Kevin Durant ever was?” followed by a dose of “Is Tyrese Haliburton top 5 with a win”.
It’s hero worship, or in the case of Skip Bayless talking about LeBron James, it’s hero bashing from a wanna-be villain’s perspective. You could say I’ve dabbled in hero worship myself over the years, but I use way too many facts and stats for it to ever be fan fiction.
Is It Connor McDavid’s Time?
Over 700 words into this section, and you might be wondering what this has to do with Connor McDavid and the NHL. Granted, the NHL gets less mainstream attention out of the US’s four major professional sports leagues, but it’s still a game with the incredible prize that is Lord Stanley’s Cup, the best trophy in the business.
Winning the championship matters, and while the NHL may not be as beholden to it as the NFL and NBA are, ring count still comes into play in this league.
No, it never mattered that Wayne Gretzky only won four Cups, which is two fewer than teammate Mark Messier, who won two after Gretzky left, including a sixth for the Rangers in 1994. But the stats alone were so dominant for Gretzky that he’s known as The Great One, the best to ever do it, with just four Cups, which wouldn’t even rank in the top 50 in NHL history.
Remember, there were only 6-to-10 NHL teams for four decades, so players on the Montreal Canadiens (circa 1956-73) like Henri Richard (11), Jean Béliveau (10), and Claude Provost (9) won the most NHL Stanley Cups.
No NHL player has won their fifth or sixth Stanley Cup since those 1994 Rangers saw Messier reunite with several of his Edmonton teammates like Kevin Lowe, Glenn Anderson, and Esa Tikkanen. Only a few players like Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Kunitz, and Scott Niedermayer have been able to win four Stanley Cups since 1994.
But even in the grandest NHL player debate of the 21st century, Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin, ring count has played a critical factor as Crosby won three before Ovechkin ever got his one in Washington. There are other things to consider, like facilitator (Crosby) vs. shooter (Ovechkin), but Crosby’s team success and elevating his teammates is why he’ll likely go down as the best of his era, even if Ovechkin scored more goals than anyone ever, including Gretzky now.
When you’re such a historically great player as Connor McDavid, who has quite arguably taken over from Crosby/Ovechkin as the face of the game in the last decade, you are expected to hoist the Cup at least once in your career.
Whether you’re an all-time forward (Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, Mark Messier, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin), defenseman (Bobby Orr, Nicklas Lidstrom, Doug Harvey, Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque), or goalie (Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, Martin Brodeur), they all won the Stanley Cup, and usually they won it multiple times.
For McDavid, this is Year 10 in Edmonton, and he has been on that Manning-LeBron path of being hailed as a generational prospect and franchise savior when he was the No. 1 overall pick in 2015.
He has certainly lived up to the hype:
- McDavid is already a 3-time Hart Memorial (MVP) winner, which only has eight other players who can say they’ve won that many MVPs.
- McDavid has led the NHL in points five times, which is the Art Ross Trophy, and only Gretzky (10), Gordie Howe (6), and Mario Lemieux (6) won that more times in their careers.
- In 2022-23, McDavid scored a league-high 64 goals and had 153 points (the most by anyone since Mario Lemieux had 161 in 1995-96).
- McDavid and Nikita Kucherov (Lightning) both had 100 assists in 2023-24, becoming the first players to record 100 assists in a season since Gretzky had 122 in 1990-91.
- McDavid has won the Ted Lindsay Award four times, which is the most outstanding player as voted on by the NHLPA, and only Gretzky (5) has won more, while David is tied with Lemieux (4) for second place.
- Last year, McDavid won the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP), becoming just the sixth player (first since 2003) to win it on a team that didn’t win the Stanley Cup after he scored 42 points (fourth most in postseason history).
- The NHL’s all-time leaders in points per game (regular season) are Gretzky (1.92), Lemieux (1.88), and McDavid (1.52) is No. 3.
- The NHL’s all-time leaders in points per game (postseason) are Gretzky (1.84), Lemieux (1.61), and McDavid (1.59) is No. 3.
With this type of resume, you could absolutely conclude that McDavid is the greatest NHL player to never win a Stanley Cup.
The reason this label hasn’t stuck yet is because he’s only in Year 10, and here he is in the SCF for the second year in a row and he’s favored to win (slightly). So, this label could be gone forever in two weeks.
Another reason the label fits so well is because the NHL has actually done a great job of seeing its best players win a championship. When you talk about the best NHL players to never win a championship, you’re looking at a list like this:
- Marcel Dionne
- Joe Thornton
- Henrik Lundqvist
- Sedin Brothers (Henrik and Daniel)
- Pavel Bure
- Jarome Iginla
- Adam Oates
- Mats Sundin
- Eric Lindros
- Peter Stastny
That’s really not that bad at all. Nothing glaring like you’d get from the NFL (Dan Marino, Barry Sanders, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Tony Gonzalez, Bruce Smith, J.J. Watt, etc.), the NBA (Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Elgin Baylor, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, John Stockton, Joel Embiid, James Harden, etc.), or even MLB (Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Tony Gwynn, Ken Griffey Jr., Carl Yastrzemski, Ernie Banks, Aaron Judge, etc.).
There, I think we just determined the NHL has done the best job of making sure its greatest players win a championship. Good to know.
But what makes Edmonton and McDavid’s situation so interesting is that he’s hardly alone in this. One year before McDavid was drafted by the Oilers, they used the No. 3 pick in the 2014 NHL Draft on Leon Draisaitl. Not only has he been the best player from that draft class, but in 11 seasons with Edmonton, he’s become widely regarded as one of the best players in the NHL:
- Draisaitl, a center who can manage his own line separate from McDavid just fine, just won the Richard by leading the NHL with 52 goals this season.
- Draisaitl has 399 goals through his age-29 season, which ranks 22nd in NHL history through that age.
- Draisaitl has recorded six seasons with at least 100 points.
- Draisaitl won the Hart (MVP) in the 2019-20 season with league-high 67 assists and 110 points (McDavid played 64 games that season).
- In NHL history, Draisaitl ranks No. 13 in points per game in the regular season (1.21) and No. 5 in the playoffs (1.48).
This isn’t Alex Ovechkin trying to overcome Nicklas Backstrom to win a Cup in Washington. McDavid has a very competent sidekick in Leon, who is an MVP and elite scorer in his own right. These guys have been through a lot together, and center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (third on the team in points this postseason) has been in Edmonton since 2011-12, so this trio of centers have played for 10 seasons together.
But it puts McDavid and Draisaitl in a unique place in NHL history. There have been 62 winners of the Hart Memorial Trophy in NHL history. Of those 62 players, 48 (77.4%) have won a Stanley Cup in their career. Only five players needed at least 10 seasons to win their first championship:
- Andy Bathgate: Won the Cup in 1964, his 12th season but the first with Toronto.
- Dominik Hasek: Won his first cup in 2002, his 12th season but the first with Detroit, a machine.
- Brett Hull: Won the Cup in 1999, his 13th season but the first with Dallas.
- Chris Pronger: Won the Cup in 2007, his 13th season but the first with Anaheim.
- Alex Ovechkin: Won the Cup in 2018, his 13th season with Washington.
Did you spot the trend? Four of those players had to leave their teams over a decade into their careers to go win a Stanley Cup immediately with their new team in Year 12 or 13.
This means Ovechkin is the only MVP in NHL history who had to wait at least 10 seasons to win his first championship with his original team. This also means Draisaitl (Year 11) and McDavid (Year 10) will try to join him by winning one in Edmonton after a decade together.
The Ovechkin path is when you endure a decade-plus of postseason disappointment only to stick with the team that brought you into the league and finally win a championship. It’s a road only traveled by a select few in sports like John Elway (Broncos), Hakeem Olajuwon (Rockets), Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks), David Robinson (Spurs), George Brett (Royals), and Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers).
The Ovechkin path is a rare one in sports as we see great players tend to leave to go win a ring elsewhere after a decade like Kevin Durant, Kevin Garnett, or these NHL examples like Brett Hull, Hasek, or Luc Robitaille. Ovechkin’s team won the Presidents’ Trophy three times and never got past the second round of those years before things finally worked out in 2018.
Among the 19 NHL players to win multiple MVP awards, McDavid is the only one who hasn’t won a Stanley Cup yet, and 14 of those players won multiple championships. McDavid, Ovechkin, and Hasek are also the only players to win multiple MVP awards who needed more than seven seasons to win a championship.
That’s not to say Ovechkin is the singular example of a great skater needing 10-plus years to win it all, nor does it mean Edmonton will be lucky to win more than one Cup under McDavid and Draisaitl. But the examples are very limited in NHL history, and the two other names that stand out for Edmonton to hopefully compare to are Steve Yzerman (Red Wings) and Steven Stamkos (Lightning).
Yzerman gave Detroit all 22 seasons of his career (1983-2006). But it wasn’t until his 14th season in 1997 when the Red Wings, a very talented roster, finally won the Stanley Cup after losing in the Finals in 1995 and not even getting there in 1996 despite 131 points in the regular season. But after getting one Cup, Yzerman and company immediately won their second Cup a year later in 1998. The captain added a third in 2002.
Like Yzerman, Stamkos never won an MVP but is one of the most prolific goal scorers and great players in NHL history. But it took Tampa some real trials and tribulations to get over the hump. The Lightning lost the 2015 SCF to the Blackhawks, lost Game 7 to the Penguins in the 2016 ECF, blew a 3-2 lead to the Capitals in the 2018 ECF, got swept by Columbus in the first round in 2019 after 128 points, but they finally won it all in 2020 (Year 12 for Stamkos), repeated in 2021, and almost had a three-peat before losing to Colorado in 2022.
Pretty incredible coincidence there. Yzerman and Stamkos both played for the first two 62-win teams in NHL history, and both were shocked early in the playoffs that year, but then they both rallied to win the next two championships. So, it’s not unprecedented for someone to get a late start at winning multiple rings. Yzerman and Stamkos did it, but they also added more talent than you could say McDavid and Draisaitl have around them.
Some other MVPs who came the closest to needing a decade to win a single ring were Joe Sakic, who needed 8 years with the Nordiques/Avalanche before winning it all in 1996. Then history kind of repeated itself when Nathan MacKinnon led Colorado to the Cup in 2022, his ninth season with the team.
But MacKinnon’s game has only grown since winning that Cup, and he won his Hart afterwards in the 2023-24 season. Draisaitl and McDavid are already MVP winners and Stanley Cup runners-up. Now, they’re trying to close the deal.
If they can’t do it this time, you have to wonder if it’s ever meant to be in Edmonton. But it’s only fitting they have to go through the team that beat them in Game 7 last year.
Who Wins the 2025 NHL Stanley Cup Finals?
When it’s all said and done, we could be talking about the Florida Panthers as the team that stopped a McDavid-Draisaitl repeat in 2024-25 by getting one themselves through excellent team play and a veteran goalie (Sergei Bobrovsky) who has completely reshaped his narrative after an embarrassing first decade of his career in the postseason.
It seems that no matter how the Panthers perform in the regular season, they are a force in the playoffs. They were statistically No. 1 in SRS in the 2021-22 and 2023-24 regular seasons, but their other two Stanley Cup seasons are ranked just No. 14 (lost in 2023) and No. 10 (this year).
Florida is 2-0 against the Oilers this season with a 6-5 win on December 16 and a 4-3 win on February 27. For what it’s worth, they were also 2-0 against the Oilers last regular season, too.
The Panthers don’t have the glamorous scoring from McDavid and Draisaitl as their top player,s like Sam Reinhart and Aleksander Barkov, have never had a 100-point regular season in their careers. But they know how to get it done in the playoffs.
Home ice could help Edmonton get off to a much better start this year, but the fact is these teams have nearly identical home performances this season (playoffs included):
- Edmonton is 31-14-3 at home with a +30 goal differential.
- Florida is 31-15-2 at home with a +27 goal differential.
Relative to the other 30 teams, both of those teams may have been at their best on the road this season:
- Edmonton is 29-19-2 on the road with a +14 goal differential (No. 3).
- Florida is 28-21-2 on the road with a +23 goal differential (No. 1).
There would be some irony in McDavid winning his first Cup in a season that hasn’t been his best stuff. He only had 100 points (fewest since COVID year), his faceoff percentage (47.7%) is its lowest since 2018-19, and he’s never had a worse season in turnover differential (42 more giveaways than takeaways).
But he’s been aggressive this postseason with the most shots on goal (59), and he leads all players with 26 points (6 goals, 20 assists) and is the favorite (+100 at FanDuel) to win the Conn Smythe Trophy again.
Bobrovsky (+270) has the second-best odds for that award, followed by Barkov (+600) and Draisaitl (+800). Would the voters dare give it to McDavid again if it doesn’t end with a Cup? Bobrovsky’s numbers are solid this postseason with all 12 wins for Florida to go with a .912 SV%, 2.11 GAA, and 3 shutouts. Goalies don’t often win this award (once in the last 12 years), but if he has a great series and shuts down Edmonton’s high-scoring playoff offense, he’s good value for this award.
Edmonton may very well have the two best players in this series, but I think the Panthers have the better team, they’re the better defensive team, have the better goalie, they know how to win on the road, and they’re scoring almost as much as the Oilers this postseason. Those veteran additions like Marchand and Seth Jones could pay off in this series.
It should be a great series that goes six or seven games, but I am picking the Panthers to repeat (+106 at FanDuel).
The underdog hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since the St. Louis Blues (+140) in 2019, so I think that streak ends here with Edmonton going back to the drawing board on what changes they need to make to hoist that Cup. But this is still as golden of an opportunity as they’ve had in the McDavid era to get it done.
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