EDMONTON, Alberta — Going into this Stanley Cup Final rematch, confidence oozed from the Florida Panthers just like last year, when they won — but this time, also from the Edmonton Oilers, who felt better prepared for the moment.
After losing the best-of-seven series opener 4-3 in overtime Wednesday night after a puck-over-the-glass penalty put host Edmonton on the power play and Leon Draisaitl scored, the Panthers have not lost any of the belief they carried into the NHL’s title showdown. Now in a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final, the reigning champions are unfazed by their deficit and appear well equipped to bounce back Friday night in Game 2, also on the Oilers’ home ice before the series shifts to South Florida for the next two contests.
“We’ve got a lot of battle scars on us from the last few years, and we’ve been through way worse,” winger Matthew Tkachuk said Thursday. “We can be better, we can adjust a few things and come out tomorrow and try to get a win here and get some momentum going back home.”
A victory would even things up and put the pressure right back on reigning playoff MVP Connor McDavid and the Oilers on the way to Sunrise, Florida, but even a loss would not put the Panthers into desperate straits.
They dropped the first two contests in the second round of this year’s playoffs against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they had scoreboard deficits of 2-0 and 3-1 in Game 3 before rallying to win that night and take the series in seven. Even for Florida’s newcomers, it was evidence that this team doesn’t go down easily.
“You’re going to have moments in the game and moments in a series that you’re going to be riding a roller coaster,” Florida defenseman Nate Schmidt said. “This team, I think, has an incredible ability to be able to not only learn from what they’ve done and apply their experience into situations like this.”
Panthers coach Paul Maurice downplayed it as “just experience,” as though every team in the NHL or any sport knows what it is like to make this many deep playoff runs in a row and look borderline unstoppable. Because of that success, the Panthers are who they are, and not a lot of major adjustments are expected.
“It’s almost always an adjustment back to form: We were a little off here, we can be a little bit better,” Maurice said. “Nobody’s changing a major system. It takes months and years to do that. You’re (talking about) adjustments back to form, but I think they have a pretty strong understanding of their foundation.”
Florida players seem to have a pretty strong understanding of how playoff hockey works. They’ve won 10 of 11 playoff series since Maurice became coach and Tkachuk arrived in a trade from the Calgary Flames in the summer of 2022.
The only time they’ve been on the wrong side of a handshake line during this stretch was the 2023 title series against the Vegas Golden Knights, when Tkachuk was sidelined by a broken sternum and several others were playing with significant injuries. The memories of that and falling behind in other series along the way stick with them.
“We learn more from adversity than we do from winning,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “Every time you lose games or go through series where you’re down 2-0 or losing in the Cup Final a couple of years ago, you learn a lot. It’s just sticking with it and being mentally strong.”
Tkachuk said he and his teammates are plenty strong mentally, so the tweaks will be more tactical. They won’t look too different but have some areas to clean up.
“Maybe a little bit more offensive zone time, some things we look at, but they played a good game,” defenseman Seth Jones said of the Oilers. “They were solid defensively. They blocked a lot of shots. And we kind of knew that coming in there’s not a lot of space out there, not a lot of plays to be made, really. So, when we do get those opportunities, try to hold on to the puck and capitalize.”
The Oilers turned the puck over several times in Game 1, with goaltender Stuart Skinner saving them a few times from the score getting more lopsided than the 3-1 deficit they overcame. They figure to be much improved in those areas.
Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch knows his team has to raise its level “because we know how good Florida is.” The blueprint has been out there for several years, and it’s an imposing one.
“They’re pretty confident with their identity, and they play to that identity very well,” Knoblauch said. “They have a lot of confidence that they’ll play their game and they should come out on top. For us, we need to just be ready for it, that they are going to be better.”