History has a way of repeating itself in sports in a manner that sometimes defies logic.
Even when it comes to the Stanley Cup, the NHL’s championship trophy that is widely regarded as the toughest to win in all of sports, there are telling patterns. How else can you explain the eerily similar tales that two of the league’s generational talents share regarding their journey to hoisting their first Stanley Cup?
Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers lost his first Stanley Cup Final to the Islanders in 1983.
The very next year, Gretzky and the Oilers topped the Islanders on the same stage to win it all.
Detroit denied Sidney Crosby and the Penguins of his first Stanley Cup in 2008.
Crosby and the Penguins came all the way back the very next season to reverse the results on the Red Wings.
Now, it’s Connor McDavid’s turn.
McDavid has his second shot at claiming Lord Stanley for the first time in his 10-year NHL career, as the Oilers are set to face the Panthers in a highly anticipated Stanley Cup Final rematch beginning on Wednesday in Edmonton.
It was this same core of Panthers players — Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Sergei Bobrovsky — who got in his way last time.
Like Gretzky and Crosby before him, McDavid will have to exorcise his demons to cement his status and capture his first Stanley Cup.
McDavid, last year’s Conn Smythe winner despite coming out on the losing end, falls into a highly exclusive category as one of the greatest to ever do it. He is, quite simply, the best player in the entire National Hockey League, and he has been for some time now.
There will never be another McDavid, just like there will never be another Gretzky or Crosby.
This is a legacy series for the 28-year-old, who is spearheading the Oilers with 26 points (six goals, 20 assists) in 16 games. Though McDavid strives for the same results as the sensational players before, the Panthers have their eyes on something else entirely: a dynasty.
“I believed that it was going to be us two again,” Tkachuk, the heart and soul of Florida’s roster, told reporters recently. “I think we’re the two best teams in the league. If everything would go right, it would probably be us two again in the finals. I have that confidence in our team, and they were the best team we played last year in the playoffs. I stand by that and I believed that at the time. And here we are again.”
In the handshake line at the conclusion of the Panthers’ seven-game victory over the Oilers last season, Tkachuk told McDavid he’d see him there again next year.
Anyone who has spent time around Tkachuk knows the 27-year-old wholeheartedly believed it when he said it.
The Panthers are onto their third straight Stanley Cup Final appearance and are in the midst of their fifth consecutive postseason (not including the qualifying round in the 2020 bubble playoffs). After losing in five games to the Golden Knights in 2023, Florida was widely regarded as the Eastern Conference team to beat on its way to securing the franchise’s first championship last year.
The team Bill Zito has constructed has been viewed as a sort of blueprint.
That’s on account of the complete and utter fear the Panthers have struck into the hearts of every team they’ve faced in the postseason over the past few seasons. They have redefined what it means to be hard to play against. They are a force in every sense of the word.
Pulling out a second Stanley Cup win in three tries would be a statement. If the Panthers manage to fend off McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and company once again, they’d become just the 10th club in NHL history to win back-to-back titles.
After keeping his hands off the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl last year, however, McDavid switched it up and picked it right up this year.
The work to reverse the results has already been put in motion.
“We didn’t last year,” he told Sportsnet from the ice in Dallas. “Give it a go this year.”