It was a playoff run for the ages. The Edmonton Oilers came up short, of course, losing in six games to the Florida Panthers in a Stanley Cup Final rematch, but the Blue-and-Orange’s journey to the championship series was marked by characteristics that played major factors in the progression not just of their 2024-25 National Hockey League campaign but from previous seasons as well. Here’s a look at those key elements of the Oilers’ recently completed playoff run. Panthers defence/forecheck They saw it coming, and the Oilers knew from experience what they were getting into with a Stanley Cup rematch from last year: the Panthers’ forecheck and defensive play. It was even better this year and was evident from the start of the Cup Final. And the aggressive, relentless team-wide pressure influences the next two key factors of this series, but I’ll get into that soon enough. While the Oilers at times found ways around the constant in-your-face style employed by Florida, resulting in little time and space for any Oiler – from the fourth line up to the magic-weaving likes of McDavid and Draisaitl – to generate offence. “Their forecheck was great, they tilted the rink,” McDavid said after Game 6. “They were able to stay on top of us all over the place and we were never really able to generate any momentum up the ice. We kept trying the same thing over and over again, banging our heads against the wall. While in the deciding game the Oilers played like a team that knew it needed to find a way to break through and looked like they tried their darnedest to get to goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, they simply couldn’t. It was in Game 5 back at Rogers Place on Saturday that their inability was even more evident, the quality of scoring chances and shots essentially being pushed to the perimeter. Basically, the Oilers were unable to penetrate the bastion protected by the relentless Panthers defence. Bobrovsky, while excellent when he needed to be, deftly batted aside the softballs the Oilers helplessly tossed his way over the rampart. “We didn’t get to their goaltender enough, either in Game 5 or Game 6,” Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm said Tuesday after going down in defeat. “We weren’t able to generate a goal in the first 40 minutes of either game. Give them credit, they’re a good team.” Limit McDavid, Draisaitl Like McDavid said in the previous section, the Panthers smothered the Oilers’ attack, which of course is spearheaded most games by him and Draisaitl. It’s not to say the Oilers’ two stars didn’t score or get chances in the Stanley Cup Final. McDavid netted a goal and six assists for seven points in the six-game final, Draisaitl eight on four goals, two of them in overtime, and four assists. But each were kept off the scoresheet in two of the games against Florida, both pivotal: the overtime Oilers loss in Game 2 and Tuesday’s series finale. If the Oilers score in OT instead in the second game, the Cup Final is certainly a different series. And the dynamic duo getting shut down completely in an elimination game, that’s saying something about the Panthers for sure. They’re deserving champions. “We battled, but we’re not leaving here as winners,” Draisaitl said Tuesday night after the loss. “They were better. Just deeper.” Turnovers You know the saying: Live by the sword, die by the sword. That’s life with Evan Bouchard as your No. 1 defenceman. Bouchard ended the 2025 NHL playoffs as the league’s top-scoring blueliner with seven goals and 16 assists for 23 points in 22 games played, good for sixth among all ‘D’ men, well ahead of the Dallas Stars’ Thomas Harley (14 points in 18 games) and the Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad (13 points in 19 games). Bouchard also led the NHL playoffs as the player with the most giveaways in the post-season with 36, followed by Harley with 29, and Oilers’ teammate Leon Draisaitl and the Panthers’ Seth Jones each with 28. He placed fifth among all NHL players on that list for the regular season with 111 in 81 games, to his credit behind the likes of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Erik Karlsson (125) and the Calgary Flames’ Mackenzie Weegar (140), the league’s two worst offenders. Yes, Bouchard is on the ice a lot as he skates on the Oilers’ top defensive pairing and is on the first-unit power play. He led the team in average ice time per game in both the playoffs (26:12) and regular season (23:28). But turnovers, especially when they’re on the biggest of the NHL’s stages, are magnified when they lead to goals. Look no further than Tuesday night’s giveaway at the blueline following a soft pass from Mattias Ekholm that Bouchard bobbled at his own blueline, leading to Panthers forward Sam Reinhart’s first of four goals of Game 6. Come-from-behind wins You can’t blame Oilers fans for expecting more of what they’d come to expect in any given game involving their heroes this season, either during the 82-game grind or during the post-season: roaring back from behind to win games, 19 of them during the regular season and eight in the playoffs. Punctuating those stats is the Oilers’ record five straight games this spring coming from behind to win games, all four of their victories over the Los Angeles Kings in the first round and in Game 1 of the next series vs. the Vegas Golden Knights. Edmonton even managed to pull the trick against the Panthers in Game 1. But that was it. The jig was up. Still, heading into Game 6, the Oilers were confident they could somehow get a leg up and elevate their game to the next level. And while they didn’t address the idea of coming-from-behind yet again to win games, that assurance came through as the team prepared for Tuesday’s do-or-die match. “What we’ve found with this team going back to last year is when our backs are against the wall, they play their best (and) they bring their best,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said Tuesday before the game. “We haven’t had our backs against the wall much this year, but last year, we certainly saw it where guys were almost just going through the motions until it’s on the line.” Depth scoring The range of scorers the Oilers enjoyed throughout the 2025 playoffs – from the team-leading 11 goals by Draisaitl through 10 from Corey Perry to contributions on lower lines such as Evander Kane’s six, Connor Brown’s five, Adam Henrique’s four and three from both Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin, who were often matched with three-goal-scoring centre Mattias Janmark on the fourth forward line – helped lift them into a second straight Cup Final berth. Because while McDavid and Draisaitl ended up as the leading scorers in this year’s NHL playoffs with 33 points each, it was scoring from those not skating on the Oilers’ top two forward lines or on the first-unit power play that made the difference in games more so than in previous seasons. That all ended against the Panthers, outside Podkolzin recording two of his three goals in the final. On Florida’s side of the ledger, however, depth scoring made all the difference. While the top forward line of captain Aleksander Barkov centring wingers Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaege were primarily tasked with shutting down Oilers units led by McDavid and Draisaitl (put aside the fact that Reinhart scored a team-leading seven goals against Edmonton for a moment), others further down the Panthers food chain stepped up offensively in big ways, of course. Yes, second-liners Sam Bennett scored five goals against the Oilers and Matthew Tkachuk three, but then there was Brad Marchand, who notched six in a third-line role alongside centre Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, who each scored a goal and five assists in the six-game final. “They have great players,” McDavid said after Game 6. ”How many guys had 20-plus points in the post-season? They’re as deep as it comes.” The answer to McDavid’s question is six, with Marchand recording 20 points on 10 goals and 10 assists. And coming up right behind their linemate was Luostarinen with 19 points (five goals, 14 assists) and Lundell with 18 (six goals, 12 assists).
