The Edmonton Oilers were inches from reaching the NHL’s mountaintop, but ultimately fell short in this year’s pursuit of the Stanley Cup. For the second consecutive season, the Florida Panthers defeated the Oilers to capture Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Following Tuesday’s crushing 5-1 loss in Game 6, it proved to be an emotional scene on the Oilers bench. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and many others were visibly upset prior to joining hockey’s most time-honored tradition in the handshake line.
“Obviously, their forecheck was great,” McDavid said. “They tilted the rink. They were able to kind of stay on top of us all over the place. Never really able to generate any momentum up the ice. Kept trying the same things over and over again, banging our heads against the wall. Credit to them. They played well.”
Much like McDavid, Draisaitl shared a frustrated sentiment.
“The takeaway is that we didn’t win,” Draisaitl said during his postgame media availability. “Nobody cares. We didn’t win, so we’ll try again next year.”
The Oilers will certainly have to do some soul searching this summer as they attempt to retool their roster in the hopes of a return trip to the NHL’s grandest stage. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the Oilers need to do to put themselves in a better position to capture hockey’s ultimate prize.
Bold offseason may be required
The 2025 offseason might be the most important in Oilers franchise history. After losing in the Stanley Cup Final for the second straight year, the franchise is faced with the sobering reality that Connor McDavid is slated to become an unrestricted free agent following the 2025-26 season.
Edmonton will have to try its absolute hardest to prove to McDavid he should stay in the only NHL city he’s ever known since being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft.
Based on McDavid’s postgame comments Tuesday, the Oilers superstar is clearly frustrated by coming up short in back-to-back seasons. It’s really hard to blame him when the Oilers have arguably two of the top five players in the entire sport, yet still manage to let a championship slip away.
The offseason could be one that requires extreme change based on how the 2025 Stanley Cup Final came to a close. After all, the Panthers outscored the Oilers 10-3 in the final two games of the series.
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Forwards Corey Perry, Connor Brown, Trent Frederic, Kasperi Kapanen and Jeff Skinner will all be unrestricted free agent this summer. It’s hard to imagine all five of those forwards re-signing with Edmonton this offseason, and the team could want to go in a different direction.
The Oilers have projected to have around $12.3 million in salary cap space this summer based on their current payroll. While Edmonton probably is going to inject itself into the Mitch Marner sweepstakes, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the Oilers improve their top six group of forwards.
Perry likely could return for one more season if he desires. After all, aside from McDavid and Draisaitl, Perry was arguably Edmonton’s most productive forward in the Stanley Cup Final, and proved he can provide value in the top six following the loss of Zach Hyman to a season-ending wrist injury.
Brown is a very affordable middle-six forward that scored five goals throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Those are the types of players that can be the glue of a Stanley Cup-winning team, so Brown would also make sense to bring back.
It won’t be a huge surprise if the Oilers are extremely aggressive this summer both in free agency and via the trade market.
Find a franchise goaltender
Much like having a franchise quarterback in the NFL, NHL teams must have a franchise goaltender manning their crease. The Oilers have failed to receive dependable goaltending in the past two Stanley Cup Finals, which ultimately proved to be the different in both of those series losses.
Simply put, something has to change for this franchise. An NHL team with championship aspirations must find a trustworthy netminder that can change the tide of a game or series. We saw that on the opposite side with Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky allowing one goal apiece in each of the last two Stanley Cup-clinching games.
Stuart Skinner has proved to be a solid goaltender at times, but ultimately hasn’t come up big when the lights are brightest. At first glance, the free agent goalie options aren’t exactly anything to write home about. The Oilers would be looking at Jake Allen, Alexandar Georgiev, Alex Lyon, Ilya Samsonov or Vitek Vanecek when it comes to available free agents. However, some of those options aren’t an upgrade from Skinner and may not even be an improvement over backup Calvin Pickard.
That makes the Oilers’ path to find an upper-tier goaltender quite a bit murky.
For the Oilers to acquire the type of goaltender they may covet, it would likely have to come via the trade market. Franchise netminders don’t exactly grow on trees. In the same vein, if an NHL team has that elite goalie, they’re probably not moving on from them unless they’re blown away with an offer.
In looking across NHL depth charts, most teams likely aren’t willing to part with their franchise goaltenders, while their backups aren’t much of an upgrade over Skinner if at all. However, there are a few teams the Oilers could call to see if certain netminders are available for the right price.
Oilers general manager Stan Bowman could reach out to the Carolina Hurricanes or Washington Capitals since both have very impressive goaltender tandems at the moment.
When it comes to the Hurricanes, the team has relied upon veteran Frederik Andersen time and time again in the postseason. Pyotr Kochetkov has seen his fair share of action, including in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and compiled a 27-16-3 record to go along with a 2.60 goals-against-average and a .898 save percentage in 47 games during the 2024-25 regular season.
Kochetkov hasn’t really been given the chance to be “the guy” in net aside from when Andersen was out of the lineup due to injury. Speaking of injury history, Andersen has dealt with multiple injuries in recent years, so the Hurricanes may be hesitant to break up their goaltending tandem. Still, it’s certainly worth kicking the tires on.
The Capitals also possess one of the league’s better goaltending tandems in Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren. The team acquired Thompson during the 2024 NHL Draft after the Vegas Golden Knights had tabbed Adin Hill as its starter going forward. Thompson thrived in his first season in the Nation’s Capital and even signed a six-year contract extension with the franchise.
With the Capitals committing to Thompson long-term, perhaps the franchise would be willing to part with Lindgren for the right price. Lindgren produced a 20-14-3 record, a 2.73 goals-against-average and a .896 save percentage in 39 regular-season games in 2024-25. The 31-year-old may not be an elite option, but could be worth rolling the dice on as a change of pace for the Oilers.
In terms of what a trade package could look like, the Oilers may have to part with one of their top defensemen, maybe a defenseman like Darnell Nurse or Mattias Ekholm, to acquire an upgrade at the goaltender position.
As the offseason unfolds, one thing is for sure: The Oilers likely won’t leave any stone unturned as they attempt to break through and win Canada’s first Stanley Cup since 1993.
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