The Florida Panthers are the Stanley Cup champions for the second straight year. After losing Game One of the 2025 Final in overtime, head coach Paul Maurice’s team won four of the next five games against the Edmonton Oilers. In Game Six in Sunrise, the Panthers took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission. They never looked back. Sam Reinhart scored four goals in the match (8th, 9th, 10th and 11th of the playoffs) as Florida pulled away further and further.
Matthew Tkachuk (8th) tallied a late first period goal. Meanwhile, Sergei Bobrovsky (28 saves on 29 shots), flirted with a shutout until late in the third period. By then, the outcome was already sealed. It was only a matter of the final score.
Unfortunately for the Oilers, Kris Knoblauch’s club had little to celebrate in Game Six. Vasily Pozkoldin scored a meaningless rebound goal (3rd) to break up the shutout. Neither he nor his team raised their sticks. They simply skated back to center ice. After the final 4:12 of regulation ticked down and time expired, it was time for the handshake line and Cup presentation to the Panthers. As per tradition, captain Aleksander Barkov was the first Panther to hoist the sport’s most coveted prize.
Sam Bennett won of the 2025 Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. He scored 15 goals the postseason. Five came in the Final series against Edmonton.
Game Six: Reinhart’s four goals
Reinhart kicked off the scoring with an unassisted goal at 4:36 of the first period. He took the puck away from Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard and beat Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner (three goals allowed on 23 shots). Reinhart’s second goal of the game, scored at 17:31 of the middle stanza, came off a deflection. Carter Verhaeghe jockeyed the puck with Barkov. Barkov’s rebound shot off a Skinner blocker save went off Reinhart and into the net on the other side of the ice. Caught out on a long shift, the Oilers could only watch helplessly as the sequence unfolded.
In desperation, the Oilers pulled Skinner for an extra attacker with about seven minutes left in the third period. At 13:26, Reinhart took a pass from Barkov and measured a wrist shot into the empty net from the attacking blueline. Verhaeghe drew the secondary helper. Reinhart added another 5-on-6 empty netter at 14:55. Verhaeghe assisted yet again.
Tkachuk’s goal late in the first period came moments after he exited the bench and joined the play. Eetu Luostarinen paitently shrugged off redundant Oilers coverage and dishes to an oncoming Tkachuk. From the high slot, the wide-open Tkachuk beat Skinnner to the glove side with traffic arriving in front.
Three Keys revisited
The Panthers held both Connor McDavid (two shots on goal, minus-four) and Leon Draisaitl (zero shots on goal, minus-four) off the scoresheet. The Oilers needed a big night from their superstars to have a realistic shot at forcing a Game Seven.Instead, the Panthers collectively limited Edmonton to five high-danger scoring chances while generating 14 of their own.
Meanwhile, in looking back at the other pre-game keys to victory, two of three factors came into play. The other did not.
- Between the pipes. The Oilers entered the series with an on-paper major disadvantage in net. Unfortunately, it played out that way in reality, too. Bobrovsky was elite when he needed to be. On the contrary, Edmonton could not rely on key saves from either Skinner or Calvin Pickard. This likely played into why Knoblauch felt compelled to go to a 6-on-5 so early in the third period. They had little choice but to roll the dice. Skinner finished the Final with an .861 save percentage. Pickard was only slightly more successful (.878) except for Game Four. Meanwhile, Bobrovsky comparatively had a .919 save percentage.
- Fatigue factor. Three of the six games in the series went overtime. Additionally, from Game Three onward, the Oilers were forced to play comeback hockey repeatedly. Chasing the game eventually wears down a team. It becomes a losing formula against a team as stacked as Florida.
- Discipline and special teams. This was a non-factor in Game Six. There were no power plays for either team. Evander Kane received a 10-minute misconduct late in the third period. Other than that non-power play situation, there were two minutes of 4-on-4 even strength play in the first period. However, for the series overall, special teams favored the victorious Panthers. Florida went 7-for-23 (30.4 percent) on the power play and 19-for-23 (82.6 percent) on the PK against the dangerous Oilers attack.
