The 2024 Stanley Cup Final matchup is set. The Edmonton Oilers’ 2-1 win over the Dallas Stars won the Western Conference and earned them a date with the Florida Panthers.
And while some might instantly think the Panthers are under the most pressure to win based on the being the betting favorite and making their second straight appearance, it’s the Oilers who need to win Lord Stanley’s Cup the most.
Florida was at this same point last year and a win would mean the first championship in franchise history. That’s certainly pressure. It is. But it’s not what Connor McDavid and Edmonton are dealing with, and have been dealing with for years.
This current run of back-to-back conference titles marks the best era in the history of the Panthers. Prior to 2023, the only other Stanley Cup Final appearance was early in the franchise’s existence in 1996. But even if Matthew Tkachuk and company fail again, their accomplishments will be celebrated forever by their fans and the community.
In addition to giving the franchise a run it hasn’t experienced before, the recent success of the Panthers’ has done wonders for helping to grow the game in a non traditional hockey market like the Ft. Lauderdale and Miami areas, much the same the Lightning winning on the ice sparked interest in hockey in Tampa Bay.
No matter what the Oilers do, hockey will always be popular in Edmonton, just as it is all across Canada. However, the pressure on the Oilers is about far more than that.
The Oilers franchise is home to five Stanley Cups, but has not experienced winning hockey’s Holy Grail since 1990, ironically two years after trading Wayne Gretzky. In fact, Edmonton has only even reached the Cup Final once since then, and that came in a losing effort as a surprise No. 8 seed in 2006.
Adding to the weight of a country being on Edmonton’s shoulders, this team is also responsible for the legacy of a generational player. Fair or not, McDavid needs to win a Stanley Cup, and do it for Edmonton and his country, to truly take his place among the legends of the sport.
While requiring a conference title at minimum may sound unreasonable, it’s the reality for any team with a generational player who has been knocking on the door for so long.
Prior to the disappointment of the 2023 postseason, McDavid registered 33 points during the 2022 playoffs, but all anyone seems to remember is the Oilers came up short of their goal to bring the Stanley Cup back to Edmonton.
To put that playoff performance in perspective, Sidney Crosby’s highest point total in a single postseason is 31, during his first Cup-winning run in 2009.
To this point in his career, McDavid has 335 goals and is only 18 points away from 1,000 career points. He’s also a three-time Hart Trophy winner. McDavid also has 29 points so far throughout this postseason and stepped up when his team needed him the most with an impressive goal in Game 6 to beat the Stars and clinch the conference.
It’s hard to look at his resume and put too much blame on McDavid, but fair or unfair, he’s the Crosby or Gretzky of his team — the face of this era of Oilers hockey. He’s also the superstar with the most pressure on him to please the hockey gods by winning the Stanley Cup and break a 31-year drought without any Canadian-based franchise as champion, the last one being the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
McDavid, 27, may seem young, but next season will be his 10th in the NHL. And the more he accomplishes, the more the pressure to win when it matters the most increases.
Factor in having a worthy co-star in Draisaitl, who has 850 career points himself, a supporting cast that includes veterans like Evander Kane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the excuses of “wait until next year” will fall on deaf ears.
Oilers fans also know as well as any, there’s no guarantee about what will happen next year.
