SUNRISE, Fla. — Matthew Tkachuk is about to renew some acquaintances. Connor McDavid is going back to where his NHL career started.
The Stanley Cup Final matchup is set: The Florida Panthers, back in the title round for the second consecutive year and seeking their first championship, will take on the Edmonton Oilers — a team looking to return to hockey’s mountaintop for the first time since 1990.
Edmonton wrapped up the Western Conference crown on Sunday night, eliminating the Dallas Stars with a 2-1 victory to end that best-of-seven series in six games. Florida won the Eastern Conference on Saturday night, topping the New York Rangers 2-1 to also finish off a six-game series.
Game 1 of the NHL’s final series of the 2023-24 season is Saturday night in Florida. The Panthers are in the title series for the third time, including last year’s five-game loss to the Vegas Golden Knights; the Oilers are seeking their sixth Stanley Cup in what will be their eighth trip to this round.
Edmonton hasn’t played for the storied trophy since losing a seven-game series to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. And the Oilers have a chance to end a bizarre streak, given hockey’s meaning and deep ties to Canada: No team from a city in that country has won the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
“Unbelievable,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said in a televised on-ice interview Sunday night, as fans in Edmonton celebrated the clincher over Dallas. “Best fans in the league. It’s incredible to do it, to get to the next level in front of these fans. Obviously, we’ve got a ton of work to do. We’re playing a good team.”
There is serious star power on both sides. Florida has Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, Sergei Bobrovsky and Sam Reinhart among its leaders; Edmonton has McDavid, Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman among its top draws.
Tkachuk came to Florida in a trade from the Calgary Flames in 2022 and famously got into the ties that bind — or don’t bind — hockey in Alberta at his introductory news conference with the Panthers, saying “I hate Edmonton, but I hate Tampa more now.”
This season’s playoff run for Tkachuk and Florida started with the Tampa Bay Lightning, a five-game win. It will end with Edmonton, and Tkachuk will surely be welcomed back to Alberta less than warmly.
“Nothing better than playing hockey in June,” Tkachuk said.
AP photo by Lynne Sladky / Florida Panthers fans cheer during Game 6 of the NHL’s Eastern Conference title series against the New York Rangers on Saturday night in Sunrise, Fla.McDavid’s first Stanley Cup Final game will be in the building where he officially pulled on an NHL sweater for the first time. He was the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft, one held in the building that the Panthers call home. Commissioner Gary Bettman was there to greet him with a handshake and a few words of congratulations when he took the stage that night — “This is awesome,” Bettman told him — and in a couple of weeks, Bettman will hand either McDavid or Barkov the Stanley Cup for the first time, the moment that captains in the NHL want to enjoy most.
“Feels like a dream, honestly,” McDavid said.
There will be a slew of names that get etched onto the trophy for the first time when this series is over, since hardly anyone on either side has previously been part of a championship.
For Florida, Vladimir Tarasenko won it with the St. Louis Blues in 2019 and Carter Verhaeghe won it with Tampa Bay in 2020. For Edmonton, Corey Perry won it with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 — and is now back in the title round for the fourth time in five years, with a fourth franchise. He lost with Dallas in 2020, Montreal in 2021 and Tampa Bay in 2022.
“It’s unbelievable, being back,” Tarasenko said.
Neither head coach has won the Stanley Cup either. Florida’s Paul Maurice has coached 1,978 games in the NHL, third most in league history; Edmonton’s Kris Knoblauch has officially coached 87 games, tied for 275th most in league history. He filled in as coach for the Rangers in six other games in 2021, called up from the team’s American Hockey League affiliate because David Quinn — New York’s coach at the time — and his staff were sidelined by COVID-19 protocols.
The Panthers won both games against the Oilers this season, 5-3 at home on Nov. 20 and 5-1 in Edmonton on Dec. 16. Knoblauch took over as coach after 13 games this season when Edmonton fired Jay Woodcroft in the wake of a 3-9-1 start; the only opposing coaches Knoblauch didn’t beat this season were Maurice and Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, going 0-2-0 against both.
“Last year, after we finished the Carolina series, trying to find the right word … pandemonium is not the right word, but the energy level postgame was through the roof,” Maurice said, comparing this year’s Eastern Conference title win to last season’s victory in that round.
“Slightly subdued this year relative to that. It was lots of happy people. But maybe we’ve got a little more experience now. And I feel that way, even on the bench. It wasn’t insanity. When the buzzer went, it was excitement, and rightfully so. We worked pretty hard to win.”
The hardest challenge of them all starts in Sunrise on Saturday night.