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Greg Wyshynski, ESPNJun 8, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
CloseGreg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.
After nearly two months of Stanley Cup playoffs, we are down to two teams left. The Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers begin the final series of the season on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN+), with the ultimate prize in hockey on the line.
As a service to those fans who haven’t been following every shot, save and overtime thriller of the 2024 NHL postseason, here is the lapsed fan’s guide to the Stanley Cup Final — a quick primer on the conference champs, how they got here and what to look out for in the series.
Wait a second … Florida Panthers vs. Edmonton Oilers? Wasn’t this the New York Rangers’ year?
It sure seemed like the Rangers were a team of destiny. It was the 30th anniversary of their last Stanley Cup win in 1994. They rolled through the first two rounds of the playoffs with overtime heroics. Rempe-mania was running wild! As coach Peter Laviolette admitted, from the players to the rest of the organization, “We truly believed we were going to win the Stanley Cup.”
Alas, the Rangers ran into a Panthers team in the Eastern Conference finals that smothered them defensively and drained their potent power play.
They ended up as the latest example of the Presidents’ Trophy curse: Since 1985, only eight teams that finished with the NHL’s best regular-season record went on to win the Stanley Cup. Since the NHL went to the wild-card format in 2013, no Presidents’ Trophy-winning team has reached the Stanley Cup Final.
According to maps, Edmonton, Alberta, and Sunrise, Florida, seem very far away.
Your geography is correct. According to the NHL, the Oilers and Panthers are 2,541 miles apart, the largest distance between two teams in a Stanley Cup Final. The previous record was set during the 2011 Final between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins at 2,500 miles apart.
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Source link : https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/40300081/nhl-playoffs-2024-stanley-cup-final-panthers-oilers-lapsed-fan-players-storylines
Author : Greg Wyshynski
Publish date : 2024-06-08 11:25:54
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