The Florida Panthers are the Stanley Cup champions for a second-consecutive season.
The Panthers repeated after decisively winning Game 6 and winning three of the last four games of the series.
Sam Reinhart scored four goals in the Panthers’ 5-1 win, becoming only the sixth player in NHL history to score four goals in a Stanley Cup Final game and the first to do so since Maurice “Rocket” Richard in 1957.
Reinhart first got the Panthers on the board 4:36 into the game, making a steal at the blue line and beating Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner as he fell to the ice.
The Panthers forward would add another even strength marker in the second period, deflecting the puck in with his skate.
He’d later add two empty net goals in the third period to close out the game. Matthew Tkachuk also lit the lamp for the Panthers while Vasily Podkolzin scored the Oilers’ lone tally of the night with 4:42 remaining, ending Sergei Bobrovsky’s shutout bid.
Sam Bennett was named the Conn Smythe winner as Playoff MVP after scoring an NHL leading 15 goals in the playoffs.
Reinhart, who scored the Cup-winning goal for Florida in 2024, is the fourth player in NHL history to record a hat trick in his team’s Stanley Cup-clinching win. The last player to do so was Mark Stone with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023, ironically accomplishing the feat did so against the Panthers in 2023. He’s also the first player to score 7 goals in a Stanley Cup Final series since Wayne Gretzky did so in 1985.
Per TNT, the Oilers only led for 34 minutes in six games and never led by more than one goal in the series. They won both of their Stanley Cup games via Leon Draisaitl overtime goals.
With the win, former Washington Capitals defenseman Nate Schmidt and goaltender Vitek Vanecek won their first Stanley Cups. After Aleksander Barkov accepted the championship trophy from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, the Panthers let the players who had never won a Stanley Cup lift it first before other veteran players who repeated did so.
