Reinhart scores 4 leading Panthers to back-to-back Stanley Cups over Oilers
Posted June 17, 2025 7:24 pm.
Last Updated June 17, 2025 11:33 pm.
Sam Reinhart’s four-goal performance led the Florida Panthers to their second straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers.
The Panthers defeated the Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.
"ALEKSANDER BARKOV, LET’S DO IT AGAIN" ????????
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THE CAPTAIN ACCEPTS THE CUP FOR THE SECOND STRAIGHT YEAR ???? pic.twitter.com/CCBlp3NNaB
Time leading the series has been a main point in stats leading into Game 6, noting that Edmonton has only led the series for just over 33 minutes, compared to Florida’s over 200.
And that stat line would not change, as early in the first period, Reinhart opened the scoring after forcing a turnover at the Oilers’ blueline, stealing the puck from Evan Bouchard, before deking Mattias Ekholm, walking in, and firing the puck past Sturart Skinner while falling to the ice.
SAM REINHART GETS THINGS STARTED IN GAME 6 ????
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WHAT A GOAL ???? pic.twitter.com/yrvump5cSm
Matthew Tkachuk would burn the Oilers late in the first, when he took a pass from Anton Lundell and wristed it past Skinner, making it 2-0.
With about two and a half minutes left in the second period, Reinhart would get his second goal of the game, after Panthers’ captain Aleksander Barkov faked a shot and passed the puck off of Reinhart and into the Oilers’ net.
THAT’S TWO FOR SAM REINHART
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THE CATS LEAD 3–0 ???? pic.twitter.com/KZkD1vH4wg
With seven minutes left in the third period, desperation met the Oilers as they pulled Skinner for an extra attacker, with the faceoff in the Panthers’ end.
The plan was short-lived as under 30 later the Panthers broke out, and Reinhart ended up with the puck on his stick, and he fired it in from the blueline. The goal would be his third of the game, and sixth of the cup finals.
SAM REINHART COMPLETES THE HAT TRICK WITH AN EMPTY-NETTER ???????????? pic.twitter.com/O0lEco4wvz
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 18, 2025
About a minute and a half later, Reinhart would add a fourth, scoring from the neutral zone on the Oilers’ empty net.
HAVE A NIGHT, SAM REINHART ????
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FOUR GOALS ON THE NIGHT AS THE PANTHERS CLOSE IN ON THEIR SECOND STRAIGHT #STANLEYCUP ???? pic.twitter.com/xdlyKHGgmD
Edmonton would finally get one, as Vasily Podkolzin would break the shutout.
“I liked their composure, I think they had some good jump early on. We learned some lessons, you know. We stayed on the gas, foot on the pedal and obviously the result speaks for itself,” Reinhart said after the game.
“We’ve had guys stepping up all postseason long, that’s just, that’s just the kind of group we have and was able to find the back of the net a couple times.”
As for winning back-to-back Stanley Cups, Reinhart said, “It’s as good as the first one.”
“It’s as good as the first one.”
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 18, 2025
Sam Reinhart speaks with @GenePrincipe on winning his second #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/LmtVh89qj7
Panthers’ Sam Bennett was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy — awarded to the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs — as he led the postseason with 15 goals and seven assists.
Connor McDavid and the Oilers see season end
Too many slow starts, not enough offense and spotty goaltending left Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers glumly exiting the ice for a second straight June to make way for another Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup celebration.
Edmonton became the third team in the NHL’s post-expansion era to lose consecutive Cup Final series appearances. The Oilers joined Boston, which lost to Montreal in both 1977 and ’78, and St. Louis, which lost three straight appearances from 1968-70.
Edmonton’s loss also extended Canada’s Cup drought to 32 years. Canadian-based teams are now 0-7 in the final since Montreal won the Cup, beating the Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings in five games in 1993.
The Oilers were eventually overwhelmed in a series they opened with a 4-3 overtime win in becoming just the 11th of 63 teams to lose the Cup when opening a final with a win at home.
Slow starts were again an issue on a day Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl opened by saying: “You still haven’t seen our best. We have to get to our game quicker.”
Despite out-shooting Florida 10-9 through the first period, Edmonton trailed 2-0. The Oilers were outscored by a combined margin of 13-4 in the opening period this series, with Florida scoring 10 straight since the midway point of the opening period of Game 2.
Skinner got the start after sitting out Game 5, but had little help in front of him in allowing three goals on 23 shots. He finished the series allowing 16 goals on 105 shots in five starts, and looked little like the goalie who entered the final on a 6-1 roll in which he allowed 10 combined goals, with three shutouts.
Secondary scoring was an issue for an Edmonton team playing without Zach Hyman (broken wrist), who had 16 goals and six assists during last year’s playoff run.
The Oilers proved over-reliant on Draisaitl and Corey Perry to carry the scoring load. The pair combined to score seven of Edmonton’s 17 goals in the series, with Connor McDavid providing a goal and six assists while being swarmed throughout by the relentless Panthers.
The Oilers’ Cup final record dropped to 5-4, with the team losing its past three appearances — last year and a seven-game series loss to Carolina in 2006. Edmonton last won in 1990, when the Mark Messier-led team won a five-game series over Boston.
One Stanley Cup ring hasn’t changed Paul Maurice, who coached the Panthers to a repeat performance
Paul Maurice is not the same person or coach he was when he got his first job in the NHL at 28 years old in the mid-1990s with the Hartford Whalers. He followed that organization to Carolina, went to Toronto, returned to Carolina and spent nearly a decade in Winnipeg.
The culmination of those three decades came last year when he coached the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup. Now the 18th coach in NHL history to win it back to back after the Panthers defeated Edmonton in six games in the final, Maurice is the same guy his players have gotten to know and follow since he arrived in the summer of 2022.
“I don’t think he’s changed since winning,” playoff leading goal-scorer Sam Bennett said. “He’s the same. He can be hard on us. He’s hard on us when he needs to be, and then he’s relaxed with us when he knows that we need to, so I think he really does have a good feel for what our team needs. We all have the utmost respect for him.”
Maurice, now 58, thought that was a nice thing to say. But what has allowed him to earn that respect from within the locker room?
Unsurprisingly, his words.
“If you walk into the room and you just tell the truth, whether they want to hear it or not but it’s the truth, and over time you could look back and say, ‘What that person told me was the truth,’ you’ll have respect for that,” Maurice said. “So, I work hard at trying to find the truth every day and then just telling it as simply as I can with the occasional joke slipped in. Most times I’m the only one that thinks it’s funny.”
It’s a different kind of funny that Maurice almost stopped coaching after stepping away from the Jets in 2022. General manager Bill Zito called, Maurice took the job and the rest is Florida hockey history.
The Panthers have won 11 of 12 series since Maurice took over. Not once was he close to the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year, but that’s a regular-season trophy, and he has done nothing but win in the playoffs.
“He really has control of this team,” Bennett said. “The team’s really just bought into the culture that he’s implemented into this team, and we’re all willing to do whatever it takes and play that hard style that he keeps preaching to us night in and night out and we’ve all just bought into that over the years.”
A.J. Greer, one of several additions who weren’t part of the 2024 run, said Maurice is a unique combination of a motivator who is also analytical and technical.
“He’s kind of just a complete package of being able to motivate us and elevate our games mentally,” Greer said. “He’s also a guy that can really translate prior games into a meeting and point out what we need to be better at. He sees the game incredibly well.”
Zito credits Maurice and his staff, along with ownership and the lifestyle in South Florida, for making the Panthers an attractive destination for free agents and players with no-trade clauses who can choose where to go.
There is good reason for that beyond Maurice’s affable personality. From Bennett to Niko Mikkola, Nate Schmidt and many, many others, players who were either adrift in their careers or looking to get on track have thrived playing for him.
“They give you a blue print of how he wants you to play, and he molds that around your strengths as a player and he doesn’t ask you to do more than what you should be doing,” said Schmidt, who got a glimpse into Maurice playing one season for him in Winnipeg. “It’s not the easiest system just to jump into, but he expects a certain level out of each guy and if you give that to him, there’s no problem. And that’s something that I find it was freeing for me, and once you kind of settle into how he wants you to play and into what kind of role he wants you to be in, it takes a lot of the pressure off.”
The past several months has been about the pressure of defending a title, but Maurice has enjoyed this run more, acknowledging “you’re allowed to enjoy it a little bit more” with your name already etched in hockey’s hallowed trophy.
The game Tuesday night was Maurice’s 2,091st game as a head coach in the NHL, more than anyone except nine-time Stanley Cup-winner Scotty Bowman. He has some time to catch up to that record, but Maurice has not been at a loss for words going for his second as his popularity among players grows.
“I think you guys know, too: He’s got a lot of things to say,” center Anton Lundell said. “But it’s fun to be here, and as a group we like him.”
-With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
