Oilers Finally Have the Team to Win the Stanley Cup Around Connor McDavid

Stop us if you've heard this before.

The Edmonton Oilers have spectacular top-end talent but lack the depth of a champion. Or, the Oilers can score with anyone, but don't have the back end to win in the playoffs. And, finally, there's plenty of finesse but not enough jam to deal with a rugged foe in a long series.

Yeah. We’ve heard them, too. They have been the prevailing narratives around the franchise for the last half-decade.

But that's about to change. The Oilers are back in the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row after Thursday night's 6-3 win over the Dallas Stars in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final.

They return to the NHL's showpiece series with two big differences from last year: a deeper, more balanced team and home-ice advantage.

But back to the narrative that they haven't been good enough around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Let's face it: That line of thought hasn't always been unfair.

Think back to the Edmonton teams of 2020 and 2021, when video-game numbers from the pair were quickly forgotten as springtime arrived and the hopes for deep runs hinged on the ham-handed likes of Josh Archibald, Jujhar Khaira and Kailer Yamamoto.

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Not surprisingly, it wasn’t pretty.

Those Oilers didn’t have the stuff—either in the locker room or on the ice—to deal with the battle-hardened Chicago Blackhawks or the nearly as skilled and far deeper Winnipeg Jets, resulting in embarrassing first-round exits in which higher-seeded Edmonton teams won one of eight games.

The trips lasted longer but didn't end better in the subsequent two seasons, when the McDavid-Draisaitl combo—widely considered the best one-two pairing in the sport—continued to produce at historical levels but found their quests for Cups foiled by eventual champs from Colorado and Vegas.

The Avalanche torched Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith for 22 goals in a four-game Western Conference Final sweep on the way to a parade in 2022, and the Golden Knights were too big, too strong and too brawny to be denied across six second-round games before their victory lap a year later.

It may have been slightly easier to tolerate given the quality of the winning foes, but the storyline persisted even into 2024, when the Oilers got through Los Angeles, Vancouver and Dallas on the way to a Game 7 loss in Florida last June.

And if you think it went away this time, think again.

Coach Kris Knoblauch's group ground its gears through an uneven 2024-25 before ultimately placing behind the Golden Knights and Kings in the Pacific. Third in the division, sixth in the conference and all but guaranteed to be early-round cannon fodder regardless of matchup.

Given recent history, it all made sense.

Until it didn't.

Rather than crumbling after a 12-goal onslaught in Los Angeles to begin Round 1, Edmonton switched goalies, tightened systems and allowed just 12 more while sweeping Games 3 through 6.

Then, instead of melting after a Calvin Pickard injury and an own goal at home against Vegas in Round 2, the Oilers went back to Stuart Skinner and ended that series with consecutive shutouts.

Clearly, something in their DNA had changed for the sturdier.

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Nevertheless, when a two-goal lead turned into a five-goal meltdown in the third period of the third-round opener against Dallas, the same old chestnuts were tossed onto a revisionist fire: Edmonton can't play defense. Edmonton's goaltending stinks. Edmonton won't hold up.

In other words, Edmonton's got no chance.

It's a convenient angle, particularly for an NFL-centric writing gaggle forced into covering hockey for the weeks between the typical Cowboys draft-day optimism and the first training-camp scandal.

To those who know what they are looking at, though, this metamorphosis is real.

"It's hard to believe they got blasted in L.A. the first couple games," analyst Ray Ferraro said on the ESPN broadcast, "because since then they've been a juggernaut."

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McDavid's brilliance has revived suggestions he is the best of all time, while Draisaitl's sniping has reminded people why he is the right choice for another MVP.

But the notes played by a suddenly classic backup band—including huge contributions from bargain-bin pickups Kasperi Kapanen and John Klingberg, not to mention an ageless Corey Perry—were what prompted Thursday's handshake line.

And they also made this title-round rematch particularly compelling.

While the pre-playoff Oilers didn't match up particularly well with a skilled and nasty Panthers team, the current residents of Alberta's "City of Champions" seem far better equipped to navigate the competitive havoc created by the likes of Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand, in no small part because of McDavid and Draisaitl.

Just as important this time, though, is what is lining up alongside them.

Maybe just enough to get No. 97 over the hump and move February's title-winner at the 4 Nations tournament into second place on his greatest memories list.

"[The Panthers] are a heck of a team," McDavid told ESPN (h/t Ian Oland of RMNB). "Obviously, it's their third Final. They're a special group, we're a special group. It's going to be fun. Can't ask for a better opportunity than to go up against the team that beat us last year so really excited about it. It's a heck of a chance."