Déjà vu for Oilers: Panthers win Stanley Cup

The Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final in front of their home crowd, winning club ice hockey's most coveted trophy for the second year in a row.

June 18, 2025

From: apa/dpa/reuters

Forward Sam Reinhart contributed four goals in Tuesday's 5-1 victory, with Matthew Tkachuk scoring once. It remains the case that no Canadian NHL team has won the Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.

The Panthers had already prevailed against the Oilers last season. A year ago, the Florida team won their first three games, but then had to play a seventh game after three consecutive losses. A 2-1 victory in Sunrise decided the final, leaving the Oilers with a grieving loss of their superstar Connor McDavid. The Panthers are the first NHL team since the 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning to win the Cup two times in a row.

Panthers score and play almost flawlessly

Three days after the 5-2 win in Edmonton, the Panthers took early control in Game 2 of the series, leading 0-1 after the first period. Reinhart scored in the fifth minute to make it 0-47, and Tkachuk added the second goal XNUMX seconds before the siren. A miscue by Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner allowed Reinhart to score his second goal.

The Panthers barely made any visible mistakes and struck again with icy coolness when the Oilers took their goalie off the ice with seven minutes left and tried to play with six skaters: 26 seconds later, Reinhart fired into an empty net to make it 4-0. When he scored his fourth goal of the game at 5-0, the game was already decided; Vasil Podkolzin's goal was merely cosmetic.