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The Edmonton Oilers travel to Sunrise to face the Florida Panthers tonight in Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.
The Oilers need to win to force a Game 7. A win for the Panthers would crown them as champions for the second straight season.
Edmonton is returning to Stuart Skinner in net and making a few lineup changes as well.
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Why are so few people watching the Stanley Cup Final in the U.S.?
With his two more goals in Game 5, Brad Marchand became the first player to score six goals in a single Stanley Cup Final since Esa Tikkanen did so for the Oilers in 1988.
Matthew Tkachuk was certainly impressed after Marchand's second goal, as you can hear in the video below.
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Even without Zach Hyman, who’s a mammoth loss for the Oilers in this series, few things are more daunting than seeing Edmonton’s power play hop over the boards with talents such as Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and sharp-shooter Evan Bouchard.
Well, the Panthers were playing with fire in the second period when they took consecutive penalties to put the Oilers on the power play with a two-goal deficit. As we saw in Game 4, it was Florida taking three second-period penalties that allowed the Oilers to notch their fourth multi-goal comeback win of the playoffs.
But this time, the Panthers did a tremendous job killing the two minors and three in the game with huge plays by the likes of Gustav Forsling and Eetu Luostarinen.
Sergei Bobrovsky made four of his saves on the penalty kill as Florida improved its league-best penalty kill to 86.4 percent (70 for 81). The Panthers are also 42 of 48 on the road (87.5 percent).
To the surprise of no one, goalie Calvin Pickard got his seventh start of the playoffs, two days after rescuing the Oilers and spurring a remarkable comeback victory in Game 4. How could they not ride the guy with a perfect 7-0 record?
Well, Pickard’s good fortune finally ran out.
The 33-year-old suffered his first loss of the postseason after allowing four goals on 18 shots. He surrendered a pair of goals in each of the first and third periods, as the Oilers started poorly and didn’t close much better.
There might not have been a bad goal in the lot, though it’s fair to debate how superb Marchand’s finish was after he deked out Walman.
The goaltending switch isn’t the only lineup change the Oilers are making tonight.
Kasperi Kapanen is back in after a one-game absence. He sat out Game 5 in favor of Viktor Arvidsson, who comes out of the lineup again. John Klingberg returns after being scratched for the last two games to make room for Troy Stecher, who’ll now be watching Game 6.
“John’s played some really good playoff hockey,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “There’s not much hesitation to not have him play.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is slated to play despite not taking part in yesterday's practice or today's morning skate. He sustained an injury in Game 2 but hasn’t missed any game action. Nugent-Hopkins is expected to start tonight's Game 6 on a line with Connor McDavid and Corey Perry.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Oilers are turning to Stuart Skinner with their season on the line.
Edmonton has tabbed Skinner to return to the starter’s net for tonight's do-or-die Game 6 after Calvin Pickard got the call in the last contest.
“Stu’s been in a lot of high-pressure games. He’s played really well,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “You look at the amount of elimination games he’s played in – there were six last year – and every single game he played in were really solid, if not spectacular, performances. So, when the season’s on the line, we have a lot of confidence in him.”
The Oilers lost 5-2 in Edmonton Saturday night to fall behind 3-2 in the series. Pickard allowed four goals on 18 shots in his first Cup Final start.
Skinner was pulled in each of the previous two games in Florida, a 6-1 loss in Game 3 and a come-from-behind 5-4 overtime victory in Game 4. He might have been the Oilers’ best player before he was removed after the first intermission that night despite giving up three goals on 17 shots.
“We went to Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final last year. He was amazing in the playoffs,” Leon Draisaitl said. “He’s had incredible games this year. There’s just a trust factor that we know that he can get the job done for us.
“In Game 4, he was amazing in the first period. He was really good. It was us that let him down. That’s tough for goalies, I could imagine. I’m not a goalie, but it doesn’t seem fair. We have full belief in him and looking forward to getting this (series back) home.”
Both goalies have seven wins on this playoff run. Skinner is 7-6 with an. 891 save percentage, whereas Pickard is 7-1 with an .886 SV%.
Skinner is 1-2 in the Cup Final with an .860 save percentage; Pickard is 1-1 with an .878 SV%.
“Feeling good coming into tonight,” Skinner said. “Definitely know that I have the confidence of my teammates and the coaching staff. I think there’s a lot of belief still.”
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Why the Oilers must turn back to Stuart Skinner for Game 6
The Oilers decided to switch their defense pairs to facilitate getting Troy Stecher back into the lineup for John Klingberg for Game 4. They went with an often-used pairing (Stecher and Darnell Nurse), another with a reasonable track record (Brett Kulak and Evan Bouchard), and one with almost no time together (Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman). They kept those groupings together to start Game 5.
The one that shared the ice for just 1:31 at five-on-five during the regular season, per Natural Stat Trick, struggled mightily on Saturday.
Ekholm had his worst period of the playoffs in his sixth game since his return from a lower-body injury. Oddly enough, he spent most of the period playing his right side, which he’s seldom done since being acquired by the Oilers in February 2023.
Brad Marchand walked Ekholm on the first Florida goal, moments after a center-ice faceoff when he was lined up on the starboard side with Nurse. Ekholm was also slow to react after Matthew Tkachuk’s shot was blocked by Walman and went right to Bennett before his goal. Granted, Mattias Janmark was more at fault for not picking up Sam Bennett.
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Connor McDavid’s first goal of this Stanley Cup Final didn’t come until his 19th recorded shot of the series.
The Oilers captain put a clever deke on Bobrovsky at 7:24 of the third period, briefly narrowing his team’s deficit to 3-1. He barely celebrated given the hole Edmonton was in at that point.
McDavid had played six straight games in the Stanley Cup Final without scoring. That included the first four games of this series and Games 6 and 7 of last June’s final. He had a two-goal performance in Game 5 of that series, beating Bobrovsky once and putting another into an empty net.
He had been feeling some heat, saying before Saturday’s game that “it’s been tight five-on-five for everybody.”
One game after taking a 3-0 first-period lead into the second period until things disintegrated, the Panthers outplayed the Oilers dramatically in the first period Saturday night to carry a 2-0 lead into the second.
The Oilers were flat, giving Florida way too much room coming in over the blue line and were beaten to loose pucks continuously with the Panthers extending their first–period score advantage in the series to 11-4 (7-0 in the past three first periods).
Edmonton went the final 11:10 without a shot on goal and three total in the period. Natural Stat Trick had the Oilers for one five-on-five high-danger chance.
Brad Marchand opened the scoring and now has 13 career Stanley Cup Final goals, the most amongst active NHLers. Marchand became only the second player in the past 59 years to score at least five goals in multiple Stanley Cup Finals (2025, 2011). Mario Lemieux had five in 1991 and 1992 with the Penguins.
“Sometimes you get bounces, sometimes you don’t,” said Marchand, who added how grateful he is for this opportunity.
The Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in Game 5 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.
Brad Marchand scored a pair of highlight-reel goals while Sam Bennett scored his league-leading 15th goal of the playoffs. Connor McDavid scored his first goal of the Final but it wasn't enough for Edmonton to overcome a dominant defensive performance by Florida.
Read more about Game 5 below.
GO FURTHER
Panthers push Oilers to brink of elimination in Stanley Cup Final with Game 5 win: Takeaways
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Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers will air on TNT and truTV and stream on Max in the United States.
In Canada, the game will air on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports.
Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET.
That's 6 p.m. local time for Oilers fans watching from back home in Edmonton, Alberta.
Hello hockey fans and welcome back to our live coverage of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.
This epic rematch is headed back to South Florida for Game 6 as the Florida Panthers have a chance to clinch another Stanley Cup Final win on home ice against the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight year. But the Oilers are also looking to do something for a second straight year — force a Game 7 in the series, and this time, that game would be back home in Edmonton on Friday.
This series has already featured three overtimes, several dramatic late goals and heroics from unlikely sources. Wayne Gretzky himself has called it "as good of playoff hockey as I can remember watching."
So stick with us all afternoon and evening for live updates, analysis and reaction to every aspect of Game 6 from our expert team of NHL writers at The Athletic!
