2024 Stanley Cup Finals — A Brief Edmonton Oilers Season Retrospective
History is written by the victors — Winston Churchill
In any professional sports final, the team that ends up winning is forever remembered. By contrast, the team that loses, with the passage of time, get cruelly rendered into the footnotes as of history. Nothing but a fog of a memory of “almost,” reduced to a bar trivia question 20 years later, that no ends up getting right because they’ve simply forgotten. Winners are remembered forever, the one’s who couldn’t get it done, forgotten, eventually.
In the archive of your sports fan mind, think back to all the finals you’ve watched with your own eyes and keen interest. Now think back to all the teams and players, who came so agonizingly close to winning but ultimately ended up falling short. Besides Trevor Linden, who was that 3rd line defensemen on that Canucks team, that lost to Messier, Kyperos, Ritcher, coach Iron Mike Keenan, and the rest of the Rangers in ‘94? Besides Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff, who centered the second line on that Flames team that lost a game 7 to the Tampa Bay Lightning? What about the North Stars team that lost to Super Mario and the Penguins?
This isn’t intended to disrespect the hardworking athletes, coaches, and teams, that ultimately fell short of winning the prize, rather, it’s to highlight how with the cruel passage of time, most people will only remember who won, hence the winners names living on forever etched on the Stanley Cup. The one’s who came up short, don’t even get a consolation, just a lifetime of “what if?”
It seems like the Stanley Cup Finals started ages ago and still, the Edmonton Oilers were rapidly down 3–0, to the Florida Panthers. Being down 0–3, in the finals, is practically a certified death sentence. To put that grim reality into glaring perspective, 28 different teams have previously tried to overturn a 0–3 series deficit, in the Stanley Cup Finals. Only the Toronto Maple Leafs managed to succeed, remarkably overturning a 0–3 against the Detroit Red Wings, in 1942.
Suffice to say, it’s not out of reach to say it’s almost next to impossible. The 0–3 hole dug is for too formidable for most teams, no matter how valiant the effort to try and comeback. To look forward, we first have to look back at how the Oilers, rocketed their way to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Edmonton Oilers of 2023–24, have been somewhat of a strange enigma. They started the season incredibly poorly. On the morning of November 12th, 2023, the Oiler’s management made a change that was surely much pondered prior to the change and heck, much needed. They dismissed then-head coach Jay Woodcroft and Assistant Dave Manson. The Oilers were 3–9–1. In came Kris Knoblauch (Head Coach) and Oilers legend, Hockey Hall of Fame inductee, Paul Coffey (Assistant Coach). Knoblauch was previously the coach of Oilers superstar Conor McDavid when they were both a part of the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). So while they were familiar with each other, Knoblauch had no NHL coaching experience, having instead extensive experience as Head Coach of the New York Rangers affliate in Hartford.
From the outside looking in, the Oilers management hiring a rookie coach with no experience, at least short-term, felt like a move designed to simply stop the ‘Oil’ from further leaking out and ruining the season. It’s become clear now in the long term that being only 13 games into the season, the Oilers’ management brass acted quickly to attempt to save their season. What happened next, surely they couldn’t have planned it any better if they tried.
Only about a month after the coaching changes, the Oilers embarked on a historical winning run, that would ultimately end up saving their season. From December 19th, 2023 until February 6th, the Oilers did not lose a single game. They rattled off 16 wins in a row, and more importantly, they showed they were serious contenders, despite the horrid start they had to the season.
Let’s circle back for a second. Before the 16-game winning streak, before the coaching changes, the Oilers CEO, Jeff Jackson, made what currently looks to be not only a season-defining hire but quite possibly if the Oilers do end up winning the cup, a hire that will be immortalized, forever. As the story goes, Jeff Jackson reached out to none other legendary sports psychologist, George Mumford, through LinkedIn. Mumford is NBA royalty and has worked with and led other NBA royalty to multiple championships. He’s worked with Phil Jackson, with Kobe Bryant, with Michael Jordan. Case in point, he knows how to push star athletes towards winning multiple championships. Then it’s no secret that the Oilers went on a historical 16-game winning run, soon after Mumford’s hire, or that they rode his echos of wisdom, to the Stanley Cup Finals. Whatever ends up happening, Mumford deserves high amounts of praise for turning the Oiler’s season around. His fingerprints are all over this Oilers playoff run.
In the playoffs, the Oilers potent offence mixed (currently: 3.54 Goals Per Game with their lethal powerplay (currently: 29.7%) and otherworldly penalty killing (currently: 94.1%) propelled them on June 2nd to the Stanley Cup Finals, a dream back on November 12, that seemed well and truly impossible. Canada’s only remaining team in the Stanley Cup Finals quickly became ‘Canada’s team’ for most Canadians. A real shot at bringing home the first Stanley Cup to Canada since 1993, was a strong reality.
10 days later on June 13th, the Oilers were down 3–0 to the Florida Panthers. Life came at them fast, but the swarming Panthers came at them faster. The Oiler’s darling offence sputtered. Their offensive superstars could not buy a goal. Their defensemen were making calamitous errors. Their goaltender looked average. By the end of game 3, which the Panthers won 4–3, most of the hockey world, including a lot of Oilers fans, had justifiable cause to write both the Oilers and this series, off. The Oilers had reverted to the team that started the season 3–9–1. They could not score (only managed a paltry 4 goals in 3 games), defend, and were let down by their goaltender. Credit to the Florida Panthers, they looked faster, hit harder, and were suffocating the Oilers with their tenacious forechecking style of play. The Oilers had no signs of life, they were more dead and buried than the Undertaker’s opponents in a ‘buried alive’ match.
Then came game 4. Season on the line, legacy on the line, saving face, whatever you want to call it, the Oilers simply needed to win. That’s it. Show up, win, and force a Game 5. Live to fight another day. Boy, did they ever. The Oilers ended up winning 8–1. From my perspective of watching the game, the Oilers were burying chances they were missing or coming agonizing close to, in games 1–3. They looked sharp, and fast, often catching the Panthers out on breakaways. The boys from Edmonton showed up to play. 8–1 wasn’t just a win, it was a loud, jarring, “we’ve arrived” statement to the face of the Florida Panthers. They had finally woken up.
From the Panther’s perspective, this was a game you learned from but quickly forget it ever happened. All you needed was one more win and you had 3 more cracks at it. Despite the 8–1 shellacking, things were still looking good for the Panthers to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup, for the first time in Franchise history.
Well..not so fast, bucko. Momentum in sport, is a heck of a thing.
The Panthers lost a close game 5 and then got blown out again in game 6, 5–1. In what seems like the blink of an eye, the Oilers rattled off 3 straight wins, scoring more than 5 goals in each of the games. Suddenly, the Panthers were looking like the Oilers at the start of this series. They looked a step slower, and defensively sloppy, and their brick wall of a goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, started to play like he had a Leafs jersey under his Panthers jersey. The Panthers looked timid, the Oilers looked like the Oilers from the 16-game winning streak.
This beautiful sets it up so that the cumulation of a lifetime work, achievement, and generational legacy, comes down to one game, for both sets of teams. Not even Vegas (casinos not the team) has stakes this high. Both sets of teams, players, coaching staff, management, etc, have arguably one chance at becoming forever immortalized, to earn the right for their names to be forever be etched onto the Stanley Cup.
The Stanley Cup is arguably the toughest trophy to win when it comes to North American professional sports. Think of how many things have to go your team’s way, just for a chance for them to have the privilege to play for the Stanley Cup. For some players on either side, in an NHL career, this may sadly be the only chance they will ever have at a cup. Most of these player will likely never be back here again, so close they could reach out and drink out of the Stanley Cup. Due to the salary cap, most teams never look the same, year after year. For this battle-tested band of brothers on either side, this may be their only shot to win a cup with their current group of teammates.
On the flipside for coaches like Paul Maurice, despite the youthful tone of his press conferences, he simply isn’t getting any younger. In a glistening 30+ year career, he’s had three separate cracks at the cup and has now never been closer. The only thing missing from what is surely a Hall of Fame-worthy coaching career is that giant silver Cup. This might realistically be his last chance because how likely is it that the Panthers make the finals for a third consecutive year, next year?
Based on the back of this season, Kris Knoblauch seems to have a long and successful coaching career ahead of him. Unfortunately, potential doesn’t win you the Stanley Cup. Who is to stay if he will ever make another Stanley Cup Finals after this season? Or maybe he ends up making 3 more? Who knows? Hockey is a strange game like that. It’s both unpredictably beautiful and equally heart-snatching at the same time.
Bring on Game 7.
