Into The Weeds: The Florida Panthers versus Edmonton Oilers 2025 Stanley Cup Final Preview
Let's dig into the rematch.
As a hockey purist, I love seeing the best versus the best. An underdog story or two is nice, but deserve should have something to do with any Cup Final. No offense to Dallas in 2020, and Montreal in 2021. And so Edmonton and Florida meet in a long-awaited, and much-deserved rematch.
Their respective paths are pretty similar; as in, nobody stood in their way — at least not with any serious conviction. The Panthers speedran Tampa Bay and Carolina. Toronto had them on the ropes, but it’s Toronto, which means the outcome was never in question no matter how dramatic they made it seem. That’s a rare thing to say about a seven-game series, but so is Toronto.
As for Edmonton, they were only on the ropes versus L.A. Sort of. Between an extremely questionable challenge (read: awful), sketchy roster decisions (Joel Edmundson is not prime Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jim) head coach Jim Hiller did his level best to give the Oilers the center of the ring when they needed it. Edmonton never looked back, only losing twice in 12 games to their next two opponents in Vegas and Dallas (a series that appears to have broken them).
I’m guessing that most people here won’t be familiar with my work, but I’ll be following the same format as my previous precaps. I’ll be hugging the charts for this (yes, I watch hockey too), starting with each team in the broad strokes, Edmonton’s offense versus Florida’s defense, vice versa, special teams, goaltending, coaching/systems, and my prediction. At the bottom will be a poll for you to send in yours.
A preview like this takes a village. So special thanks to the following:
Subscribers (the two of you rock)
Louis Boulet of LB-Hockey (he rocks)
Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones (God Tier)
Jack Han of the Hockey Tactics Newsletter (also God Tier)
Dimitri Filipovic from the PDOcast (whose insights I often steal)
Bruce Curlock (whose tactical preview is a must-read)
Florida: the broad strokes
They’re the Cup champs. They’re gonna looked cracked in most categories. And they are. (Lighter bars refer to offensive categories while darker bars refer to defensive ones.)
By now, everyone knows the book on them. A lot of carnival barkers will drone on and on about their toughness and grit, but it’s their symbolic toughness that really shines. Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart are anything but “nasty” but they play resilient games, and are a major reason why Florida excels at forcing turnovers, and unforced errors (pressure generation). For all their truculence, they’re one the most skilled teams in hockey, and on the potential verge of a dynasty (inasmuch as these things exist nowdadays).
They’re also a stylistic anomaly in many ways; not really concerned with traditional attacks sniping opponents off the rush or grinding them down with a tactical cycle, they beat opponents with a pace teams just can’t match. It helps that they have forward trios and defense pairs with genuine chemistry. Barkov with Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues are an absurd 77 percent in expected goal share, while the newlook third line of Anton Lundell with Brad Marchand and Eetu Luostarinen1 dominate shot share. They don’t grade out as an elite finishing team, but it doesn’t matter. When you control territory at an elite level the Panthers do, the goals will come, and the goals against won’t. It’s the perfect formula for winning battles of attrition.
The addition of Seth Jones cannot be understated either. For several seasons, Florida was seen as the exception to the rule of “defense wins championships” due to having something of a patchwork defense beyond Gustav Forsling — who is yes, elite. But it’s hard to argue that is still the case. While Jones has often been regarded as a good but flawed player, his presence on the Panthers has made them even better at what they already do well while minimizing his weaknesses. Florida is outshooting opponents 71-52 with him and Niko Mikkola on the ice. So yea. No real weaknesses. Well, except for the whole ‘discipline’ thing.
Edmonton: the broad strokes
You know their story. It’s the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl show. But…
Despite fumbling the Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway bag, Edmonton’s depth has never been better thanks to some MacGuyver-esque roster work. Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen have turned into unlikely BFFs for Draisaitl, even if Evander Kane was won his spot back next to Leon. Wonky defenders like John Klingberg have further leveraged the Oiler’s true strength: which is the rush.
The loss of Zach Hymen hurts, but Edmonton will still have their two best players (and more critically, Draisaitl looks healthier than he’s ever been in a playoff run). The 2024-2025 regular season was led by Edmonton in shots per 60, at 31.24 (Florida was third). In these playoffs, the trend has held, second behind only Colorado. Defense and goal suppression are not the same thing. Edmonton tends to get a bad rap for being “bad defensively” when really it’s just goaltending that tends to have offnights. Otherwise, they do a great job of keeping chances down, even if they tend to look a little scrambly at times thanks to players prone to gaffes like Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak. Still, it’s impossible to understate the gravity of Draisaitl’s improvement this year. The development of his defensive game put him at a career high this year.
His xWAR of being worth seven wins (or 13 extra points in the standings) was a league high.
Edmonton’s offense vs. Florida’s defense
It’s a cliche, but for Edmonton, this is all about the neutral zone. Can they force turnovers, or regroup for different looks to catch Florida going backwards for something of a midrange counterpunch?
The Panthers don’t have a lot of weaknesses, but they’re not perfect. Neither Jones nor Aaron Ekblad excel on extinguishing chances on entries. For a team like Edmonton that can attack with speed, they can’t let those opportunities go to waste. If they can expose gaps in the neutral zone, and stretch out Florida’s barrel-of-monkeys attack, there’s real juice to this series looking a lot better for Edmonton than it might seem.
Florida’s offense versus Edmonton’s defense
The breakout. If Florida can shutdown Edmonton’s rush before it begins, the series is over.
The Oilers’ defensive core is similar to Florida in that both are quite dynamic. There’s a solid mix of players who can defend, and move the puck out. However, something we saw versus Dallas is that Edmonton is prone to getting hemmed in their own zone. At their best, players like Evan Bouchard and Jake Walman do phenomenal work making quick passes, and nimble plays and dumpouts to give their forwards momentum. At their worst, they’re turning the puck over. Edmonton has to do something the Leafs did in Game 6 with their strong center support along the walls to really alleviate the Panther's’ pressure. For Florida…just keep rolling.
Goaltending/Special Teams
Stuart Skinner gets a lot of flack, but when you look beyond save percentage and consider the team play in front of him at even-strength and on special teams over the last three seasons, he’s been a solid goaltender overall. As you can see, this season was his only truly poor season, and the team play in front of was actually worse. (Click the pic to enlarge)
Basically, Skinner tends to outplay the team defense in front of him, so typically when he’s bad, it’s because the team is bad. With Sergei Bobrovsky, he tends to play as well as the team in front of him, except on the PK.
Edmonton’s PK has been bad, but their defense has deserved a better fate — they rank 14th among playoff teams in goals allowed, but their expected goals against shorthanded is 7th — and we saw that versus Dallas. Florida owns the top PK in the postseason, which means McDavid and Draisaitl will have to do go nuts on the PP. The Panthers have just been okay on the man advantage, but their shot quality is lacking (they rank 12th in expected goals for).
Maurice vs. Knoblauck/Systems Analysis
For those who haven’t seen these from Micah Blake McCurdy, it’s kind of a glance at how a team’s shot quality changes under certain coaches in different gamestates: tied (0), up by one (+1), down by one (-1), etc. The “shell” refers to how tied and leading gamestates change late in the game. Knoblauch seems to have his Edmonton squad locked in defensively when they lead without losing offense. Maurice’s team will lose their offense in trailing situations, but are really good at evens.
For more on systems analysis, I’ll just leave the rest to Jack Han.
One thing I’d expect is the same matchups. Last year, it was power for power: McDavid vs. Barkov. If the Lundell line — currently outscoring the opposition 10 to 2, and outshooting them 65 to 50 — pac mans Edmonton’s bottom six, then Knoblauch may have to treat the third line like the second, and vice versa. I’m not sure this series should be all that matchup-driven. There’s just too much horsepower. Expect both coaches to do what Jason Statham and Vin Diesel do in Fast and Furious 7 which is step on the gas and roll the dice as unsafely as possible.
Prediction
I feel like Edmonton doesn’t get enough respect for how close that series was last year, (hence why every team is talking about “getting tougher” and why draft darlings like James Hagens are being criticized for not being as “playoff made” as other prospects2) but missing Hymen would be one thing: the other thing is picking against Bobrovsky. Over the last three postseasons, his goals saved above expected is 12 to Skinner’s -9 (in defense of Skinner, he’s been decent this postseason, and above expected). I also think Florida’s trade deadline moves have the edge, which for me, gives them the overall one. Love them or hate them, welcome to the sunbelt era, folks.
Florida in 6.
He’s expected to play in Game 1 despite leaving Game 5 vs. Carolina. AJ Greer is the day-to-dayer.
Why is this a talking point? The teams drafting Hagens are not playoff bound (!?!).