McDavid calls Panthers ‘heck of a team’ after they beat Oilers in 2nd-straight Stanley Cup final – Edmonton

Connor McDavid stood in the same room in the bowels of Amerant Bank Arena.

The Oilers superstar captain was — just as he had 12 months earlier — digesting a crushing loss that ended Edmonton’s season.

Down the hall and out on the ice, the Florida Panthers were once again hoisting the Stanley Cup.

McDavid and his crestfallen teammates, meanwhile, were left with the same empty feeling.

Sam Reinhart scored four goals, including two into the empty net, as Florida topped Edmonton 5-1 in Game 6 of the NHL title series to claim the franchise’s second consecutive championship after beating the same opponent in the same building last June.

“Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in, but they’re a heck of a team,” said McDavid, his soon-to-be shorn playoff beard still in place.

“They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”

The Oilers fell behind the Panthers 3-0 in last year’s final before battling back to force a Game 7 they would go onto lose 2-1.

“The takeaway is that we didn’t win,” Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl said of this year’s closing act. “Nobody cares. Like, nobody cares. We didn’t win … try again next year.”

Edmonton, which was without heart-and-soul winger Zach Hyman after he suffered a dislocated wrist in the Western Conference final, dealt with a cluster of injuries toward the end of the regular season before falling behind the Los Angeles Kings 2-0 in the opening round.

The Oilers responded with four straight victories to advance. They then eliminated the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars in five games apiece to set up a rematch with the Panthers.

“There’s no silver lining to this,” Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch said.

“It’s still heart-wrenching. It’s very difficult to handle right now.”

And while the Oilers again stumbled at the final hurdle, the players seemed more resigned to defeat than last year’s soul-crushing end.

“We battled,” Draisaitl said. “But we’re not leaving here as winners.”

Edmonton, which won Games 1 and 4 in overtime for the club’s only victories in the series, didn’t have an answer for Florida’s relentless forecheck, and led for just under 34 minutes across the six games.

“It sucks. It’s painful. It’s not fun,” said Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who was victimized on the Panthers’ first goal from Reinhart. “Not, obviously, what we wanted.”

Edmonton was outscored 13-4 in the opening period in the series — and 9-0 over the final four games — against Florida’s grinding approach.

“They tilted the rink,” McDavid said. “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 (expletive) trying the same thing over and over again, banging our heads against the wall.

“Credit to them, they played well.”

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Knoblauch reflected on the group’s resolve to push through following a run that not many on the outside saw coming after the club finished the regular season third in the Pacific Division.

“It hurts,” he said. “We felt that we could have won it all. Getting so close last year and getting so close this year … a lot had fallen into place and it did very early in the playoffs. I’m very, very happy about the guys. They gave a tremendous effort.

“It’s gonna be a long summer.”

Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner, who got the start Tuesday after getting pulled in Game 4, said there are lessons to take forward.

“Show up better, react better to certain situations,” he said. “We need to learn from this right away, right now.

“Letting it happen two times in a row is devastating.”

Oilers forward Corey Perry has now been on the wrong end in five of the last six Cup finals. The 40-year-old, who plans to continue playing next season, lost with Dallas (2020), Montreal (2021), Tampa Bay (2022) and Edmonton (2024, 2025).

“He brought tears to my eyes,” said Skinner, who was consoled by Perry at the final buzzer. “I keep that for my heart.”

The Oilers will now turn their attention to another painful off-season knowing how close they were – and how tough the mountain is to climb.

“We’re right there,” Ekholm said. “We just need to get over that hump. We have a lot of the right pieces and the right characters in our room. It’s very frustrating right now. I don’t even know if I’m thinking straight.

“I hope we’ll be back in the near future.”

McDavid spoke about Edmonton’s resolve in a challenging campaign that ended with a familiar feeling.

“We came together at the right time,” he said. “We just found a way to get here.”

The grind begins anew in September.

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