Five reasons why the Oilers will win the Stanley Cup

Here are five reasons the Oilers can end their 34-year Stanley Cup championship drought.

1. Connor McDavid

It’s been said the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win in professional sports, but that task becomes a little easier when you have the best hockey player on the planet on your team (McDavid finished third in scoring with 132 points during the regular season.)

McDavid leads all playoff scorers with 31 points in 18 games, and he’s taken the eighth-most shots on goal (55). He’s been held without a point four times this postseason and he’s logged nine multi-point games. Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky will have his hands full trying to keep McDavid from taking the series over.

2. Elite power play

The Oilers a power-play unit that was the fourth-best during the regular season (26.3%) but has taken off in the playoffs, clicking at a 37.3 success rate, which is tops among the playoff field.

Despite averaging the fourth-fewest power-play minutes per game among playoff teams, Edmonton’s 19 power-play goals are five more than the next-closest team, which happens to be Florida with 14, and the Oilers’ 51 power-play opportunities are the second-most in the postseason behind the Panthers’ 60.

3. Forward depth

While the Panthers have some great forward lines themselves, it’s tough to match the kind of offensive firepower the Oilers can throw at teams with their top few lines. Per Money Puck, Edmonton has three of the top 15 lines in the playoffs in terms of goals scored and goals for per 60 minutes.

The McDavid-Zach Hyman-Ryan Nugent-Hopkins line has scored the second-most goals (nine), logged the fourth- most shots (136), is tied for the fifth-most goals per 60 (4.72) and has the seventh-most expected goals for (4.5) in the playoffs. 

Edmonton also has the McDavid-Hyman-Leon Draisaitl line that has played 76.7 minutes together and ranks seventh in goals for (five), 10th in shots (94) and 11th in goals per 60 (3.91), and the Draisaitl-Evander Kane-Dylan Holloway line, which is 11th in goals for (five), 12th in shots (91) and 19th in goals per 60 (3.19).

4. No. 1 penalty kill

The Oilers had a middle-of-the-road penalty kill during the regular season, ranking 15th (79.5%), but they’ve found magic in the playoffs with a penalty-killing unit operating at a 93.9% — best in the playoffs.

Helping their cause is having five of the top 15 defensemen in blocked shots in the postseason — Darnell Nurse (fifth, 45), Brett Kulak (eighth, 39), Vincent Desharnais (ninth, 38), Evan Bouchard (12th, 33), Mattias Ekholm (15th, 28) — and three defenders rank in the top 15 in fewest shot attempts against per 60 — Bouchard (fourth, 42.9), Philip Broberg (fifth, 43.2), Ekholm (15th, 53.6), per Money Puck.

5. Red-hot goalie

Yes, Stuart Skinner had a rough go of things in the first two rounds of the playoffs (he allowed three or more goals six times in 10 games) and he even lost his starting job for a while, but he rebounded nicely in the Western Conference Final against the Central Division champion Dallas Stars.

The Stars, whose offense features Jason Robertson (80 points), Roope Hintz (30 goals) and Wyatt Johnston (32 goals), were the third-highest scoring team during the regular season (3.59 goals per game) but Skinner held them to 2.3 goals per game and had a .922 save percentage en route to dispatching of them in six games. Skinner is playing his best hockey of the season heading into the Cup Final.