Sunrise, Fla. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Stanley Cup will, once again, enjoy another summer in South Florida.
The Florida Panthers go back-to-back as Stanley Cup champions, earning a six-game series win in 2025 over the Edmonton Oilers. It is the second time in as many years the Panthers defeat the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final.
Unlike last season when Florida nearly blew a 3-0 series lead to win the Stanley Cup in seven games, the Panthers were able to take care of business in Game 6 of the series at Amerant Bank Arena with a dominant 5-1 win in front of the home crowd.
The star of the night for Florida in Game 6 was former Buffalo Sabres forward Sam Reinhart, who netted four of the Panthers' five goals. Reinhart became the first player to score four goals in a game in the Stanley Cup Final since Maurice "Rocket" Richard accomplished that feat back in 1957.
Reinhart got the scoring started just 4:36 into the contest with a beautiful unassisted effort.
The 29-year-old then added his second goal of the night in the second period when Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov banked a puck off his skate and in past Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner.
Then in the third period, Reinhart capped off the hat-trick and added his fourth goal of the game, both coming with an empty Edmonton net as the Oilers worked to get back in the game with an extra attacker.
Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk scored the only other Panthers goal on Tuesday, as he revealed after the win that he was playing with a torn adductor off the bone, while also dealing with a hernia on the same side of his body.
Thanks to his four-goal performance on Tuesday, Reinhart finished the playoffs tied as the Panthers' top scorer with 23 points (11+12) in 21 games. Also finishing with 23 points for Florida this postseason includes Tkachuk with eight goals and 15 assists and Carter Verhaeghe with seven goals and 16 assists.
While Reinhart capped off another Stanley Cup title for Florida in style, it was Sam Bennett coming away with the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. Bennett ended up finishing the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 15 goals, which was four more than the next highest total by Reinhart and Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl (11).
In goal, Sergei Bobrovsky was, once again, stellar for the Panthers, finishing with a 16-7 record in the postseason and registering a 2.20 goals-against average, a .914 save percentage and three shutouts. He turned away 28 of 29 shots faced in Game 6 to backstop Florida to victory.
When all was said and done in this series, the Panthers ended up outscoring the Oilers, 28-17, while also leading a total of 255:49, setting a new Stanley Cup Final record.
The Panthers are the first team to repeat as Stanley Cup champions since the Tampa Bay Lightning did so back in 2020 and 2021.
Along with Reinhart, other former Sabres players to win a Stanley Cup with the Panthers again in 2025 include forward Evan Rodrigues and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov.
As for the Oilers, their bid for their first Stanley Cup since 1990 came to an end with a whimper, finishing the final two games of the series being outscored, 10-3.
Despite finishing the playoffs as the top scorers with 33 points each, Draisaitl and captain Connor McDavid were unable to get the production from other pieces of the lineup to get Edmonton over the finish line. Draisaitl led the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final with eight points (4+4) in six games, while McDavid ended up with seven points, though scoring just one goal.
Perhaps what killed the Oilers in the series was a lack of consistent goaltending from either Skinner or Calvin Pickard.
Skinner ended up going 1-3 in the Stanley Cup Final with a 3.97 goals-against average and an .861 save percentage. He ended up being pulled in Games 3 and 4, before sitting behind Pickard in Game 5, and then returning to the net for Game 6 back in Florida.
As for Pickard, he went 1-1 in the Stanley Cup Final with a 2.88 goals-against average and an .878 save percentage.
Once again, Edmonton fails to give Canada the nation's first Stanley Cup title since the 1993 Montreal Canadiens, when they defeated Wayne Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings in five games.
Up next on the NHL schedule is Round 1 of the 2025 NHL Draft in Los Angeles, Calif. on Friday, June 27, followed by Rounds 2-7 on Saturday.