They’re Canada’s team with a bullet.
That the Edmonton Oilers are the last Canadian side left in the National Hockey League playoffs is old news, their elimination of the Vancouver Canucks in a gruelling seven-game, second-round series occuring two weeks ago.
But now, they have the opportunity to quench a long national thirst for hockey glory.
The Oilers are through to the Stanley Cup final after beating the Dallas Stars in six games to claim the Western Conference.
It’s been 31 years since the last Canadian team won the league title. It took the Montreal Canadiens five games to beat the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings to claim the NHL crown in 1993, coincidentally the Cup’s 100th anniversary.
Since then, nothing, but maybe — just maybe — the Great White Northern squad featuring the game’s best player has what it takes to end the slide.
Connor McDavid, a three-time NHL MVP and current playoffs scoring leader, recognizes there’s pressure as there would be for any team, regardless of country, to win, but that the Oilers have the obvious additional caveat of being based in Canada.
“We’ve got great Canadian fans, and it feels good to maybe unite the country a little bit and have something to bring people together,” McDavid said on Sunday following Edmonton’s series-winning game over Dallas.
“That’s what sports is all about, bringing people together. Hopefully, we’re doing that for Canadians across the country.”
‘Hockey means so much to Canada’
Squads north of the 49th Parallel since 1993 have come close to once again hoisting the oldest trophy in North American team sports — on six occasions, with four of the series (including Edmonton in 2006) going the seven-game limit — but ultimately failed to bring the hallowed hardware back to its country of origin, where then-Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston donated it to honour Canada’s top amateur hockey club starting in 1893.
The Canadiens were the last Canadian team to appear in the Cup final, in 2021 when they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games.
Before their three-decade-plus title drought, Canadian teams had appeared in the Cup final regularly. In the 26 seasons between 1967-68, when the NHL expanded from six to 12 teams, and 1993, when the league boasted 22 franchises, at least one Canadian squad appeared in the Cup final 18 times, winning the Cup on 16 occasions, or 62 per cent of the time.
Oilers forward Zach Hyman said “it’s cool to hear” his team has support from fans across the country when told of a group of fans from Ottawa professing support.
“Hockey means so much to Canada and to Canadians,” he said.
“It’s been a long time since a Canadian team has won the Cup. It would mean a lot to Canadians whether they’re Oilers fans or not, I’m sure, some pride over the Americans.”
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, a former bench boss in Toronto and Winnipeg, said Monday he anticipates the atmosphere in Edmonton “will be electric” and expects Canadians will be tuning into the Cup final en masse.
“There’s lots of people watching hockey straight into June up there,” he told media in Florida.
“It’s a big part of the fabric of life. If it was a 40,000-seat arena, they could fill it for an event like this. Every city thinks it’s got the loudest building.”