Panthers and Oilers are now more alike as their Stanley Cup Final rematch arrives

A year ago when the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers met in the Stanley Cup Final they were polar opposites in everything from atmosphere area and franchise history to deep-run experience and toughness Since Florida won that series in seven games for its first championship much has changed to make these opponents much more alike The Panthers have added talent and skill and the Oilers have gotten older and become harder to play against Those changes set the stage for an compelling rematch Tournament is Wednesday night in Edmonton These are the two nastiest teams left Cup winner Mike Rupp stated They don t seem to get rattled they play with a lot of intensity sometimes they cross the line They just defend well There s a lot of things that they re different than one another about but at the core of it they re pretty similar to each other Comparing the two Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl haven t gone anywhere but they ve also been through the heartbreak of forcing Championship against the Panthers and falling short of the goal they ve been hunting over the past decade together With Trent Frederic Jeff Skinner John Klingberg and Jake Walman the Oilers are bigger and more seasoned for this They re meaner mentioned retired defenseman Jason Demers who like Rupp is now an NHL System analyst They have a little bite to their competition a lot more bite than last year where they were a little bit more speedy Florida can be speedy opportunistic and dangerous and has been over the past meager postseasons winning of series since coach Paul Maurice took over and winger Matthew Tkachuk arrived after a agreement from Calgary The Panthers are in the final for a third consecutive year losing to Vegas in only after Tkachuk defenseman Aaron Ekblad and others were banged up to the point that they had nothing left in the tank They were the underdog back then With one flourishing Cup run complete and with Seth Jones and Brad Marchand added to the core led by Tkachuk and captain Aleksander Barkov they now look unstoppable They re a heck of a company McDavid declared after beating Dallas to win the Western Conference Final Obviously it s their third finals They re a special group We re a special group It s going to be fun Rough and tumble It also could be physical The Oilers lost hard-nosed winger Zach Hyman to a long-term injury late in the series against the Stars but they are more prepared now to play the rough-and-tumble style Florida has won with The fact that it s a rematch in the final the NHL s first since Pittsburgh beat Detroit in the second of their back-to-backs in only spices things up There have only been four rematches in the Final since I don t think there ll be any weeding out or wading into that series Demers stated I think it s going to be gun shot explosions right off the bat Going down two games to none last year led to McDavid s profanity-laced outburst in the locker room a moment caught on cameras that wasn t quite enough to turn around the series The memory of going down - clawing back to cross the continent again for a Battle and not winning is still fresh in his mind The Oilers have been through that trip to the final and feel the pain now something the Panthers endured before winning Now it s time to see if they learn the same lesson and change the aftermath Edmonton now I think they needed to experience last year to get to where they re at now and they re kind of unflappable Rupp noted I think that s a weapon for them