Are the Oilers and Panthers going to be OK?
There’ll be more than just bragging rights on the line when the Edmonton Oilers play host to the Florida Panthers at Rogers Place Thursday night.
Even the most casual hockey fans know that the Oilers and Panthers have met up in each of the last two Stanley Cup Finals, with Florida winning both times.
The two teams have quickly built up a fierce rivalry that has also spilled over into international competition, with Matthew Tkachuk memorably calling Leon Draisaitl “always the bridesmaid” in a recent Olympic game.
It took seven games to decide the outcome of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, with the Oilers battling back from a 3-0 series deficit before losing in Game 7. The next year, Florida won in six games.
But it seems as though all that high-stakes hockey may have taken a toll on these once-formidable contenders. Entering Thursday’s action, the Oilers rank seventh in the Western Conference with a middling .558 points percentage; Florida is in even worse shape, sitting 13 points back of the final Wildcard spot in the East.
The last time the reigning Stanley Cup champion missed the playoffs the following year was 2015, when the Los Angeles Kings found themselves on the outside looking in thanks to an unexpected surge by the Calgary Flames. Eight years earlier, both the Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes missed the playoffs after reaching the Final in 2006.
It certainly looks like at least one of the 2024 and 2025 finalists will fail to qualify this time around, and with the Oilers recently losing Draisaitl for the rest of the 2025-26 regular season, they could be more vulnerable to late surges by the Kings, Seattle Kraken, or San Jose Sharks. It’s going to be a fascinating stretch drive.
The Panthers have won their championships. The Oilers haven’t — at least, not with this core. But does this down season mean the window is closed for these two teams to return to contention?
For Florida, there’s one huge elephant not in the dressing room, and that’s Aleksander Barkov. Fresh off shutting down the Oilers’ top offensive stars in back-to-back championship series, the big Finn sustained a torn ACL and MCL during training camp last September and has missed the entire 2025-26 season to date. Barkov has resumed skating and should be good to go to start next season, but it’s tough to miss that much time, especially so soon after turning 30.
Barkov isn’t the only Panthers player who has missed significant action this year. Tkachuk, who remains one of the most dominant puck-possession players in the NHL, has appeared in only 20 games after missing the start of the year while recovering from offseason surgery. Seth Jones, Brad Marchand, and Eetu Luostarinen have also spent extended periods of time on the shelf. All told, 33 different skaters have played for the Panthers this season.
But the biggest and most pressing issue for these Panthers to address this summer is their goaltending, which was an enormous strength during their Stanley Cup runs but has been a major weakness this season. The Panthers opted not to move Sergei Bobrovsky ahead of this year’s trade deadline, with general manager Bill Zito subsequently stating his desire to re-sign the veteran goaltender.
Bobrovsky will be 38 at the start of the 2026-27 season, and in 46 games with the Panthers this year, he has a 24-20-1 record to go along with an .876 save percentage. It’s safe to say the two-time Vezina Trophy winner is already showing real signs of decline, and after trading Spencer Knight to the Chicago Blackhawks to acquire Jones in 2025, the Panthers don’t really have a defined succession plan between the pipes.
That said, the Panthers still have a better outlook in goal than the Oilers, who made arguably the most ill-advised move of the season back in December when they acquired Tristan Jarry from the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Oilers parted with reliable blueliner Brett Kulak, experienced playoff netminder Stuart Skinner, and a future second-round pick to acquire Jarry, who cleared waivers in January 2025 and has an .855 SV% in 15 games since arriving in Edmonton.
Sure, it might be a bit charitable to refer to Skinner only as an “experienced playoff netminder” given his struggles with consistency and giving up bad goals at inopportune times, but it’s unclear why the Oilers viewed Jarry as an upgrade at the position, particularly given his unwieldy $5.375-million cap hit through 2028. Penguins fans celebrated GM Kyle Dubas for being able to move that contract for any semblance of positive value. It’s just another puzzling move for an Oilers team that has yet to get over the hump.
Connor McDavid turned up the heat (and pressure) on the Oilers when he signed a two-year contract with the club back in October. Assuming he remains in Edmonton through the time that deal expires, McDavid will have given the Oilers 13 seasons of his elite-level hockey. But here we are, in year 11, and if not for the overall weakness of the Pacific Division and the Western Conference, these Oilers might be on the outside looking in.
We’ve grown accustomed to seeing the Oilers stumble out of the gate in the regular season before ramping it up in the second half and steamrolling their opponents in the playoffs. They’ve proven to be a highly resilient team with the ability to overcome almost any deficit. Still, this year’s iteration of the Oilers is much closer to the league average in expected goals percentage and scoring-chance differential than in years past.
McDavid, Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard are having terrific years, but this team’s supporting cast seems to be eroding in real time. For all the criticism these Oilers have taken about being a one-line team, they had genuinely formidable forward depth in the 2024 playoffs, with Dylan Holloway, Warren Foegele, Corey Perry, Ryan McLeod, Connor Brown, Derek Ryan, and Mattias Janmark all providing legitimate two-way value. But it wasn’t quite as good in 2025, and, with all due respect to Vasily Podkolzin and Matt Savoie, it just doesn’t feel even close to that level this year, and Stan Bowman’s disastrous swings and misses in free agency have hurt more than they’ve helped.
The upcoming offseason looms particularly large for both these teams, although the magnitude of any changes in Edmonton is largely dependent on how they fare in the playoffs (assuming they make it). Additionally, both the Panthers and Oilers will have to navigate around challenging payroll structures, with the Jones and Darnell Nurse contracts likely standing in the way of any sweeping retool-type moves.
Item No. 1 on the Panthers’ to-do list this summer is to lock down a goaltender, and it’ll probably be Bobrovsky. From there, they’ll have to hope for full seasons from Barkov and Tkachuk in 2026-27. Most of their Cup-winning core is still intact, but in the end, the best ability is availability. If they can make it through next season without sustaining serious personnel losses, these Panthers could reclaim their former glory.
The Oilers are in a slightly better spot in the standings, but they’ve also had their stars in the lineup for most of the season. Their forward depth is severely lacking, their defense is suspect (although it’s improved since Paul Coffey returned to the bench), and their goaltending is no better (but more expensive) than it was before. If the Oilers fall short of the Stanley Cup once again this year, perhaps they replace head coach Kris Knoblauch — but in all likelihood, they’ll have to make even more changes.
We won’t be seeing these two teams in the Stanley Cup Final for the third consecutive season. The Oilers could go on another run this year, but that’s looking more improbable with each passing day; the Panthers will just have to bide their time, get healthy, and hope for things to turn around. Sometimes, teams need to spend years wandering through the wilderness before they’re ready to chase another championship.
It probably won’t happen overnight. But, one way or another, it’d be unwise to bet against Barkov, Tkachuk, McDavid, and Draisaitl returning to the biggest stage once again before their careers are over.
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