Oilers come together during postseason to return to Stanley Cup Final

DALLAS -- The Edmonton Oilers adopted “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan as their dressing room victory song during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but “Come Together” by The Beatles might be more appropriate.

Edmonton is going back to the Stanley Cup Final after defeating the Dallas Stars 6-3 in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final here at American Airlines Center on Thursday, looking like a team of destiny.

Yet, the playoffs did not start out that way. With injuries and uncertainty, Edmonton was more a team in disarray.

“I think it’s been a different experience, some teams get really hot coming down the stretch and they ride it all the way through the playoffs,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “For us, it’s kind of come together in the playoffs and we’ve been building and building and building our game.

“I think we’re starting to see some of our best hockey -- maybe tonight not so much -- but our best hockey is still in front of us, which I think is a great thing.”

The Oilers are playing their best at the most important time of the season and will face the Florida Panthers in a Final rematch starting with Game 1 of the best-of-7 series at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).

Edmonton is looking to avenge a 2-1 loss in Game 7 of the Final to the Panthers last season.

“I think we spent seven months getting ready for this playoff run,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I think it was on our mind since we lost that last game. It was a long tough summer and training camp and regular season, we were just kind of punching our card and showing up, wanting the playoff and having another opportunity.”

The Oilers put together an impressive playoff run, advancing past the Los Angeles Kings in six games in the first round, the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the second round and the Stars in five games in the conference final.

It was the second consecutive year Edmonton defeated Dallas in the conference final.

“I can tell you on the other side, that Edmonton team is better than the team we played last year,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “Deeper, defend harder, harder to play against, that’s a lot better team than the team we played last year in the conference final.”

It is a far cry from only a few weeks ago, where it appeared Edmonton’s road back to the Final would end abruptly after losing the first two games to Los Angeles.

The Oilers qualified for the playoffs by finishing third in the Pacific Division and limped into them with a good portion of their roster injured.

McDavid and Leon Draisaitl missed time toward the end of the season because of injury, as did Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and defensemen Jake Walman, Troy Stecher, John Klingberg, and goalie Stuart Skinner.

Forward Evander Kane missed the entire regular season with a sports hernia injury and Trent Frederic was limited to one game with the Oilers because of a high ankle sprain after he was acquired from the Boston Bruins prior to the NHL Trade Deadline.

“We’ve found a way and we’ve gotten better each game and each day,” Oilers forward Corey Perry said. “We’ve talked about getting better every day and we’ve found some good things in our game and we continue to grow in that.”

In the first round, it took a tying goal with 6:42 to go in the third period of Game 3 and a failed coach’s challenge opening the door for the winner against the Kings to prevent the Oilers from falling into a 3-0 hole in the best-of-7 series.

They needed a late tying goal with 29 seconds remaining and an overtime winner by Draisaitl in Game 4, which really set the wheels in motion for the Oilers.

“LA was a good team and they won the first two games and there was a lot of uncertainty, we had a lot of guys coming back from injury,” Knoblauch said. “Kane hadn’t played, Frederic was coming off a long injury, so many guys were just kind of getting together.”

Knoblauch put together new line combinations and defensive pairings not used in the regular season to start the playoffs. He had to resort to a goaltending change after the second game in Los Angeles, starting Calvin Pickard over Stuart Skinner.

The move worked, as did seemingly every other lineup change Edmonton made.

“We didn’t have much time to jell, we needed to figure it out pretty soon and everyone stepped up at different times, whether it was Calvin Pickard coming in and winning some important games for us early on in the LA series and Vegas, Stu coming in and picking up where we expected him to play at,” Knoblauch said. “Even Jeff Skinner tonight, coming up and scoring a goal after not being in the lineup for so long. We have a lot of guys that have contributed, which really feels good.”

Now the key is to keep it going in the Cup Final against the toughest opponent the Oilers will face in the postseason.

“I think it’s fun to be in this situation and have the opportunity to go back to where we were last year,” Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “It’s a group that I think we were jelling, we believed in ourselves from the start of the playoffs, no matter how things were going, no matter what was going on, it’s a group that’s very resilient, a group that believes in each other and we earned ourselves an opportunity to go back to the Cup Final, but there’s a lot of work to be done.”