Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers face off in a Stanley Cup Final rematch of NHL powerhouses

EDMONTON, Alberta — At the height of his hockey career after winning the Stanley Cup last year with the Florida Panthers, Matthew Tkachuk had a message for Connor McDavid at the Edmonton Oilers captain’s lowest point of his career in the handshake line immediately following Game 7.

“We’re gonna see you again next year in it,” Tkachuk said.

McDavid did not think much of it at the time. Sitting with a larger-than-life photo of Tkachuk raising the Cup over his left shoulder Tuesday on the eve of the rematch, he found it “funny to look back on how it’s worked out.”

“Two good teams then, two good teams now,” McDavid said. “Let’s get after it.”

The Panthers and Oilers meet again in the Stanley Cup Final that begins with Game 1 on Wednesday night in Edmonton looking like two NHL powerhouses on a collision course.

“I believed that it was going to be us two again,” Tkachuk said. “I think we’re the two best teams in the league. And if everything would go to plan, it would probably be us two again in the finals.”

There were plenty of twists and turns along the way, from a series of anticipated and unexpected offseason departures last summer through a long regular season and even playoff stumbles. At every turn this spring, Florida and Edmonton seemed to flex just the kind of muscles teams need to win when it matters most.

The Oilers lost their first two games in the first round. They have won 12 of 14 games since.

The Panthers lost the first two games of their second-round series and fell behind 2-0 in Game 3. They have gone 8-2 since.

That kind of dominance made another cross-continental championship series feel inevitable. The only question is whether it will end with Florida going back-to-back or McDavid, the undisputed best player in the sport, finally will hoist the Stanley Cup.

“Winning in the playoffs takes everything you’ve got,” McDavid said. “All of our energy is in going into beating the Florida Panthers. There should be nothing else on anyone’s mind.”

McDavid and longtime running mate Leon Draisaitl are the top two scorers in the playoffs with 26 and 25 points apiece. Florida still has its core led by Tkachuk, captain Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and all-world goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.

The Panthers are in the final for a third year in a row.

“We know how hard it is to make it this far, to make the finals,” Barkov said. “The first year we went, we were all like, ‘Wow, this is something new for us.’ I think last year was more like, ‘OK, we’re here again, let’s do the job.’ This year, we knew it was going to be hard, but here we are again. Every year is a little different, but it’s the same excitement and same goal: We want to win it again.”

Brad Marchand and Seth Jones have joined Florida’s repeat bid, an injection of star talent by general manager Bill Zito at the trade deadline.

Edmonton has some new faces, too, after losing young Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to restricted free-agent offer sheets by St. Louis in August. GM Stan Bowman signed John Klingberg and traded for Jake Walman and Trent Frederic to give the team more experience for just these occasions.

“We’re better equipped this year,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We’ve got, especially up front, a lot more physical players.”