Oilers set to play Panthers for 1st time since 2024 Stanley Cup final

It has been almost six months since the Edmonton Oilers’ championship aspirations slipped away in a Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final.

On Monday night, Connor McDavid and company will get their first crack at exacting revenge against the hockey club based in Sunrise, Fla. The game will be played at Rogers Place.

“It’s good to have these types of games to look forward to,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the team’s morning skate on Monday. “Obviously last year, with the way it ended, there’s some bitterness.

“(It’s) a good test for us.”

“We’re obviously very familiar with how they play,” Oilers winger Zach Hyman said.

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McDavid said while the Oilers are very familiar with the Panthers after last year’s playoff battle, it is now a new season.

“A lot of turnover on both teams,” he said. “They play great team defence and they’ve got a great goaltender.”

The matchup seems to be coming at a good time for Edmonton as the Oilers (18-10-2) are riding a five-game winning streak and have won eight of their last nine games.

“(We have) lots of things going well,” McDavid said. “Special teams are starting to pick up (and we’re) getting great goaltending.”

The Panthers (18-11-2) are coming off consecutive losses in which they have been shut out: a 3-0 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday and a 4-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday. Still, the Panthers have a 6-3-1 record in their past 10 games.

Florida’s star centre, Aleksander Barkov, missed Saturday’s game because of illness.

Stuart Skinner is expected to start in goal for the Oilers while Sergei Bobrovsky is the expected starter for the Panthers.

“(Skinner) has been playing at an elite level,” Knoblauch said. “Picks (backup goaltender Calvin Pickard) has been playing pretty well too.

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“Stu has showed a lot of maturity for still a young goalie. We’ve relied on him quite a bit.”

The Oilers’ last game, a 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday, saw centre Leon Draisaitl continue his offensive dominance of late as he scored a goal and chipped in two assists.

“We created looks early on in the year, too — it just didn’t seem to go our way,” Draisaitl said after the game on Saturday while talking about Edmonton’s offensive surge of late. “With that being said, I think that everything is a little more clean right now and we are hitting the right spots at the right time.

“I like our game right now. I think we’re playing well and starting to find our roles a little bit and our rhythm a little bit better. Obviously we have some really good teams coming up here, so we are just looking to continue that.”

On Monday, the NHL announced that Draisaitl had been named one of the league’s three stars of the week. He leads the NHL with 22 goals heading into the game against the Panthers.

–with a file from Shane Jones, The Canadian Press