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Oilers superstar Connor McDavid has won three Most Valuable Player awards, five scoring titles, a Conn Smythe Trophy, and was the centerpiece of Canada’s triumph in this year’s 4 Nations Face-Off. A still-elusive Stanley Cup title, however, could represent the final piece to solidify him as the face of the NHL and one of the sport’s all-time greats.
McDavid is leading the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final rematch against the Panthers, beginning Wednesday night in Edmonton. After Florida’s seven-game triumph last year, McDavid said he only focused on beating the defending champions.
“There’s a big circus. You can feel like it’s larger than it is,” McDavid said. “At the end of the day, it’s another series, and we’re playing another great team, and you’ve got to beat them before anything else happens. So they have our complete focus. All of our energy is going into beating the Florida Panthers. There should be nothing else on anyone’s mind.”
The bigger storylines, however, are quite prevalent. In many ways, McDavid is mirroring the on-ice path of his boyhood hero, Penguins star Sidney Crosby, and Wayne Gretzky, the NHL’s all-time leading scorer who is honored with a statue outside of the Oilers’ Rogers Place. Both Crosby and Gretzky lost in their first trips to the Stanley Cup Final, ultimately setting the stage for subsequent success and helping burnish their legacies.
“I see, obviously, the parallels that everyone wants to write about,” McDavid said. “At the end of the day, this is a different story. Different teams, a different group. [I’m] just excited to have another kick at the can here. That’s all.”
As the Oilers host the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place, a model for downtown redevelopment sparked by sports, the NHL said those contests are projected to generate more gate revenue than any other games in league history.
Multinational Factors
The Oilers, meanwhile, are attempting to become the first Canadian franchise to win the Stanley Cup since the Canadiens in 1993. Since then, seven Canadian teams, including Edmonton twice, have reached the Stanley Cup Final but fallen short.
While the presence of another Canadian team in the championship series this year will complicate how viewership is evaluated—likely depressing U.S. audiences while boosting those north of the border—this year’s matchup is also happening against the backdrop of an ongoing trade war sparked by President Donald Trump, and more fan booing of the U.S. national anthem at the Stanley Cup Final games is possible.
While tensions between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are not necessarily as palpable as earlier this year, the relationship between the two countries has still fundamentally changed, with Carney calling the prior dynamic with its southern neighbor “over.” Carney has repeatedly resisted Trump’s calls to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, responding with his own “Elbows Up!” rallying cry.
Carney also hails from Edmonton, has made no secret of his love of the Oilers, and even has taken in a morning skate with the team.
“Time to finish the job,” Carney said in a social media post about the Oilers’ playoff march.
