EDMONTON — As “We want the Cup” chants engulfed an arena filled with orange and blue, the Edmonton Oilers gathered near NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to get their picture taken around the Clarence Campbell Bowl.
Though they opted not to touch the trophy they earned for Western Conference supremacy — the result of a white-knuckle 2-1 victory over the Dallas Stars in Game 6 on Sunday — it didn’t make the accomplishment any less satisfying.
In Year 9 of the Connor McDavid era, the Oilers — after so many lean seasons and a few kicks to the gut in recent playoffs — are finally where they’re supposed to be.
There were so many times when it seemed like it might never happen but McDavid’s Oilers will get a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup.
“It’s been a bit of a bumpy road, whether it be off years or heartbreak in the playoffs,” McDavid said. “This was always part of the plan to be in this moment.”
This moment represents the franchise’s first trip to the championship series in 18 years.
Back then, the Oilers entered the playoffs as the conference’s eighth seed and went on a Cinderella run led by bruising defenseman Chris Pronger, the hometown scoring wonder Fernando Pisani and the goaltending exploits of Dwayne Roloson.
A crushing Game 7 loss and Pronger skipping town days later sent the team into a spiral known in these parts as the Decade of Darkness. Three No. 1 picks in a row, the middle of which yielded Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in 2011, did little to turn their fortunes.
It wasn’t until McDavid arrived through lottery luck in 2015 that things began to change. But the pace seemed glacial. There was just one playoff appearance in McDavid’s first four seasons, a second-round loss in 2017.
Even with the hiring of soon-to-be Hall-of-Fame GM Ken Holland in May 2019, the buildup to this point was a slow churn.
The Oilers reached the conference final in 2022, but it was a series in which they felt they had little chance against a Colorado juggernaut. Last year’s second-round knockout by Vegas, however, broke their hearts.
They spent the summer lamenting it. They vowed they wouldn’t let a series slip away by their own doing again. But, as winger Zach Hyman said, they hadn’t turned the page by the time the season began.
It was one reason among many — injuries to McDavid, Mattias Ekholm and Ryan McLeod, struggles adapting to a new system, poor goaltending and bad luck — that the Oilers started the campaign so poorly.
A loss to the lowly San Jose Sharks on Nov. 9 left the Oilers with a 2-9-1 record and put them in a tie at the bottom of the standings with five points. It ultimately cost Jay Woodcroft, the coach who led them to three playoff series wins over two years, his job.
Sure, the Oilers were always supposed to be here. But that they got here after that, makes this even more special.
“We didn’t think too highly of ourselves — and look at us now,” Ekholm said. “We obviously knew what kind of team we had. We had shown it last year. We had shown it before. Was I panicking at the time? No. Was I a little worried? Maybe, yeah.”
Kris Knoblauch was tasked by CEO of hockey operations Jeff Jackson to turn things around. These weren’t the 2005-06 Oilers, a team with some decent players hoping for the best. These were McDavid’s Oilers, a team primed to win now but looking like anything but.
“I knew there was a really good team here, good players and things were going to sort themselves out,” Knoblauch said. “How they were going to sort out, we weren’t sure how well.
“There was definitely frustration on how the team had been playing, where they were in the standings, and we just had to kind of sort things out and look short term.”
Those around the Oilers always point to the game in Washington on the day after American Thanksgiving as the turning point. Knoblauch gave the team a goal of winning five times in every eight-game segment. The Oilers beat the Capitals 5-0 to kick off eight straight victories.
“He just instilled a wave of calmness and confidence,” Hyman said. “He helped guys find their game. He helped some of our best players. We were all struggling. That’s why our team was where we were and he came in with a calming presence, with a process-based plan.”
Ekholm said it was in January, amid their 16-game winning streak, that the Oilers finally felt like they were the contenders they fancied themselves to be. They allowed two goals or fewer in the last 14 of those contests.
“We weren’t winning 6-1 or 6-0,” Ekholm said. “There was none of that. We were solid as hell.
“We had that demeanor about ourselves where there was no panic.”
That was on display at the end of this series. Stuart Skinner allowed just four goals in the last three games — all wins.
No one epitomized the topsy-turvy season quite like Skinner, whose stats ranked near the bottom of the league early on but put forth Vezina Trophy-caliber numbers from the Washington game onward.
Skinner had his ups and downs in the playoffs as well. The low point came when he lost his starter’s job for seven periods in the middle of the Vancouver series. But he regained the net and showed up big when it mattered most.
“You look at Florida, they have a great goaltender,” Ekholm said. “We now have a great goaltender, too.
“He’s found his game now where it’s at a level that we can absolutely compete every night.”
Skinner held down the fort, especially during a third-period onslaught. He made 14 of his 34 saves over the final 20 minutes. The Oilers were outshot 35-10 in the contest.
“It was nice to see him have a game like this,” Knoblauch said. “We don’t win this game unless Stu is terrific, and Stu was terrific. Throughout the series, he’s been terrific.”
But the Oilers also played well enough in front of him.
“Last year after the Vegas series, I stood here and I said Vegas won some games they didn’t deserve,” Ekholm said. “But they just did it because they did the right things for longer periods of time. Tonight, I thought we did that.”
Skinner was a big part of a penalty kill that went 3-for-3 on the night. His blocker save on Jason Robertson in the third in that situation was one of his best stops in the game.
Overall, the Oilers denied the Stars on all 14 power plays in the series and even scored a short-handed goal. That ran their streak of successful kills to 28 — a span of 10 games.
The power play came up big at the end of the series, too. After breaking a 1-for-17 skid going back to the Vancouver series with a 2-for-3 effort in Game 5, the Oilers scored on both of their chances on Sunday. They finished 4-for-11 over the six games.
Fittingly, it was McDavid who was the catalyst on Sunday.
McDavid scored the most breathtaking goal he’s ever had in his playoff career as he sidestepped Sam Steel, toe-dragged Miro Heiskanen and shoveled a shot over Jake Oettinger at 4:17 of the first period.
“You still don’t get used to it,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “He pulls something like that out and it’s pretty mind-boggling. For him to make that play is pretty incredible, and that’s why he’s our leader.”
McDavid hunted down pucks on the next man advantage and eventually made a beautiful feed to Hyman, who ripped home his 14th goal of the postseason. That put the Oilers up 2-0 heading into the first intermission.
“He was our best player,” Knoblauch said. “He really stepped up and made a lot of good plays. I don’t think there was a shift he was on the ice that he wasn’t making a difference.”
Skinner was basking in the limelight after the Oilers won. He’s the kid who grew up in the city idolizing Roloson during the 2006 Cup run. Roloson was in the house and the two got to meet in the morning.
“Being from Edmonton, it’s the cherry on top being able to get to a point like this,” Skinner said. “But there are a lot more sprinkles to put on the sundae coming up here.”
In this moment, though, as the Oilers finally reach the series that gives them a chance at ultimate glory, it’s all about McDavid.
He’s the prodigy, the generational talent destined to lead the Oilers to this spot. He showed up, as he so often has, with a chance to bury an opponent. Think of how he finished Los Angeles off or his overtime winner against Calgary two years ago.
This, given the stage and the stakes, was probably better.
GO DEEPER
Lazerus: Unstoppable, unmissable Connor McDavid reaches the Stanley Cup Final. Don’t blink
“It’s hard to describe because he gives us the confidence we need in these moments to play a little more free,” Ekholm said. “We didn’t have a ton of offense in the first, but he comes in there and he puts us on his back and does the things that I don’t think anyone else can do in this league.”
Just like their season, Sunday’s win wasn’t always pretty. But the Oilers hung tough and got the job done.
“The group has always stuck with it,” McDavid said. “We’ve always believed in ourselves and each other. To put ourselves in this position was always a possibility and it feels good to have done that.”
Now, they have just one more series left to go.
(Photo: Perry Nelson / USA Today)
