Oilers aware of 'elephant in the room' for Stanley Cup Final rematch against Panthers

EDMONTON -- The Edmonton Oilers came up one goal short in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers last season and understand the stakes will not be as high when the two teams play for the first time since then at Rogers Place on Monday (8:30 p.m. ET; TVAS, Prime, NHLN, SCRIPPS).

Yet, the rematch may provide an indication whether the two teams are on the road toward another collision course in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"It's a regular-season game in the middle of December, so it's not as though it's some type of rematch for the Stanley Cup or anything," Oilers forward Connor Brown said. "But with that being said, it's going to be on everybody's minds on both teams. We're all going to be aware of that elephant in the room and I think the intensity and the energy will be up for sure."

Making it to Game 7 of the Final after falling behind 3-0 in the series, only to lose 2-1, took some getting over for the Oilers. The disappointment bled into this season with Edmonton losing its first three games and five of seven (2-4-1) before gaining traction. Edmonton (18-10-2) is on a five-game winning streak and 8-2-0 in its past 10 games with impressive wins against the Tampa Bay Lightning (2-1), Minnesota Wild (7-1) and Vegas Golden Knights (6-3).

"I like our game right now, I think we're playing well and we're starting to find our roles a little bit," Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. "We're starting to find our rhythm a little bit better, and we had good teams coming up and we're looking to continue that."

Draisaitl and captain Connor McDavid are both working their way up in the NHL scoring race. Draisaitl has 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) in his past 11 games and ranks fifth in the League with 45 points (22 goals, 23 assists) in 30 games this season.

McDavid has 20 points (seven goals, 13 assists) in his past 11 games. He is tied for eighth in the NHL with 41 points (14 goals, 27 assists) in 27 games, nine behind Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, who leads the League with 50 points (13 goals, 37 assists) in 32 games.

“We’re playing well, a lot of good things are going on; special teams are starting to pick up, we’re getting great goaltending,” McDavid said Monday morning. “We have a lot of self-belief in here, we believe in our group, we believe that we’re a good team, but you have to go out and show it, you have to play well. We felt like we were doing a lot of good things we were not getting rewarded early on, and it’s nice to see the wins coming in.”

McDavid said even though Edmonton and Florida only play twice during the season, the teams developed a rivalry because of their epic Final series.

“We played them however many months ago, seven times in a row you’re going to form a rivalry,” McDavid said. “It wasn’t that long ago. That being said, it’s a new year, a lot of turnover on both teams and we’ll see, hopefully we’ll get a big win tonight.”

The Panthers (18-11-2) won six of seven (6-0-1) before consecutive shutout losses to the Vancouver Canucks (4-0) and Calgary Flames (3-0). Captain Aleksander Barkov did not play against Calgary because of an illness and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made way for Spencer Knight after starting the three previous games. Both could be back against the Oilers.

"I think it's going to be a really hard game," Panthers forward Anton Lundell said. "They obviously remember last season and so do we. I think it's going to be a very physical game."

Florida started the five-game road trip with a 2-1 shootout win against the Seattle Kraken.

"We went five or six games, and we put up [33] goals, and we put up one on this trip," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Saturday. "I'm not concerned about our offense or lack of it. We're not moving the puck well enough to generate, but that's not really an important part of our game. Our rush defense is AWOL and if we do that against Edmonton, they'll put up 15 on us. We have to get that sorted out first."

The Oilers feel they have moved on from the loss in the Final and want to take advantage of still being in their championship window. The core of the team from last season remains intact and the new additions are starting to find their game.

"I think for us, we're looking ahead," Brown said. "We're embracing the process here of trying to get back there. That's obviously the end goal, but we're looking to just keep getting better and better. There's opportunity ahead of us and that's the way we're looking at it for sure."

The Oilers are ahead of where they were a year ago. They were still climbing out of a 2-9-1 hole, which prompted a coaching change with Kris Knoblauch replacing Jay Woodcroft on Nov. 12, 2023. Knoblauch was able to get the Oilers back on track and has them heading in the right direction again this season.

"I think we could have got derailed early in the year," he said. "It wasn't our best hockey that we played, but I think it was still pretty good, and I think it was better than our record indicated. We could have gotten away from the process and did things drastically and maybe we could have gotten similar results and started winning games.

"We felt it was still pretty good even though we weren't winning games, and we needed to make some little tweaks and eventually some of that puck luck was going to go our way. Overall, I've been happy with our team game and especially now that we're winning games."

The Oilers are chasing the Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific Division. They trail Vegas (20-8-3) by five points and Los Angeles (18-9-3) by one and are expecting the best out of the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

"It was a hard-fought series last year against them, and it's a new season, their team that has played really well throughout the start of the year," defenseman Darnell Nurse said. "A lot like [Saturday], though we want to come in with the mindset that we want to play our game and worry about ourselves."