Panthers pounce on Oilers, win 2nd straight Cup

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Florida Panthers repeated arsenic Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 successful Game 6 of the last connected Tuesday night, becoming the NHL's archetypal back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay successful 2020 and '21 and the 3rd squad to bash it this century.

Sam Reinhart scored 4 goals, becoming conscionable the 4th subordinate successful league past to get that galore successful a crippled successful the final. His 3rd to implicit the chapeau instrumentality sent rats, on with hats, flying onto the ice. Matthew Tkachuk, 1 of the faces of the franchise, fittingly scored the Cup clincher.

At the different extremity of the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots helium faced, closing the doorway connected a rematch with the aforesaid extremity result. The lone extremity came from chap Russian Vasily Podkolzin successful garbage time, agelong aft the result was decided.

That was followed by chants of "We privation the Cup!" arsenic clip ticked disconnected the clock. The Panthers already had it. Now they get to support it.

Not agelong aft the Lightning made 3 trips to the last successful a row, Florida has done the aforesaid and present has the makings of a modern-day dynasty. The Panthers person won 11 of 12 playoff bid since Matthew Tkachuk arrived by commercialized and Paul Maurice took implicit arsenic manager successful the summertime of 2022.

The lone clip they person been connected the incorrect broadside of a handshake enactment was the last successful Vegas successful 2023, lone aft respective cardinal players were dealing with banged up and gutting done important injuries.

From the halfway of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett connected down the roster, they were overmuch healthier this clip astir and were boosted by cardinal commercialized deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones. Bennett led each goal-scorers this postseason with 15, and Marchand had six successful the last alone.

Getting extent contributions from passim the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers, who struggled with Florida's ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders aggregate times successful the final. Stuart Skinner got the motion successful Game 6 and was again done successful by mistakes successful beforehand of him that ended with the puck successful the nett down him and had his ain blunder connected Reinhart's 2nd goal.

McDavid tried to instrumentality implicit but was again stymied by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with 7 points successful his 2nd vocation travel to the final, again denied his archetypal title.

Canada's Stanley Cup drought reached 31 seasons and 32 years dating to Montreal successful 1993. Teams successful the U.S. Sun Belt person won it 5 of the past six times, 4 of them successful Florida.

This tally done Tampa Bay successful five, Toronto successful seven, Carolina successful 5 and Edmonton successful six showed however objective the Panthers person go nether Maurice, who has coached much NHL games than everyone but Scotty Bowman and is present a two-time champion.

So is Marchand, who past hoisted the Cup successful 2011 with the Boston Bruins. The 14-year spread is the third-longest successful league history, conscionable shy of 16 for Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 for Mark Recchi from '91 to '06.