For the second year in a row, the Stanley Cup will be basking in the South Florida sunshine.
The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final on Tuesday night, becoming the NHL ’s first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in 2020 and ’21 and the third team to do it this century.
Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming just the sixth player in league history and first since Maurice Richard in 1957 to get that many in a game in the final.Charles Barkley cameos on Stanley Cup pregame show — and makes bold predictionOilers vs. Panthers Game 6 odds, picks: NHL Stanley Cup Final predictions, best bets“Good evening, South Florida,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said before presenting the trophy to captain Aleksander Barkov. “It feels like we just did this.” Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced, closing the door on a rematch with the same end result.Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the Florida franchise, hoists the Stanley Cup in celebrations after the Panthers’ Game 6 championship-clinching win over the Oilers on June 17, 2025.That was followed by chants of “We want the Cup!” as time ticked down. The Panthers already had it. Now they get to keep it. “This is as good as the first one,” Reinhart said. “We learned some lessons. We stayed on the gas, foot on the pedal, and obviously the result speaks for itself.” Not long after the Lightning made three trips to the final in a row, Florida has done the same and now has the makings of a modern-day dynasty. The Panthers have won 11 of 12 playoff series since Tkachuk arrived by trade and Paul Maurice took over as coach in the summer of 2022.Sam Reinhart celebrates his goal as Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner looks on during the Panthers’ Stanley Cup-clinching Game 6 victory.“We’ve got to be a dynasty now,” Tkachuk said. “Three years in a row finals, two championships. This is a special group.” The only time they have been on the wrong side of a handshake line was the final in Vegas in 2023, only after several key players were dealing with banged up and gutting through significant injuries. From the core of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Barkov and Sam Bennett on down the roster, they were much healthier this time around and were boosted by key trade deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones.Bennett won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Barkov handed the Cup to first-time champion Nate Schmidt, and all the others winning it for the first time got it soon after.Getting depth contributions from throughout the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers, who struggled with Florida’s ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders multiple times in the final. Stuart Skinner got the nod in Game 6 and was again done in by mistakes in front of him that ended with the puck in the net behind him and had his own blunder on Reinhart’s second goal. McDavid tried to take over but was again stymied by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with seven points in his second career trip to the final, again denied his first title.Sam Reinhart celebrates his goal during the second period of the Panthers’ 5-1 Stanley Cup-clinching win over the Oilers in Game 6.“We lost to a really good team,” McDavid said. “Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in, but they’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”Teams in the U.S. Sun Belt have won it five of the past six times, four of them in Florida. This run through Tampa Bay in five, Toronto in seven, Carolina in five and Edmonton in six showed how clinical the Panthers have become under Maurice, who has coached more NHL games than everyone except Scotty Bowman and is now a two-time champion.The 14-year gap is the third-longest in league history, just shy of 16 for Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 for Mark Recchi from ’91 to ’06. “It’s incredible,” Marchand said. “It’s a feeling you can’t really describe. Seeing the family and everyone up there and everyone that supported me and helped me get to this point, words can’t put this into reality how great it feels. Such an incredible group.”Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the Florida franchise, hoists the Stanley Cup in celebrations after the Panthers' Game 6 championship-clinching win over the Oilers on June 17, 2025.Sam Reinhart celebrates his goal as Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner looks on during the Panthers' Stanley Cup-clinching Game 6 victory.Sam Reinhart celebrates his goal during the second period of the Panthers' 5-1 Stanley Cup-clinching win over the Oilers in Game 6.
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