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The Florida Panthers have beaten the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in Game 5 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.
The Panthers now lead the series 3-2 and can clinch their second straight championship at home in Game 6 Tuesday night.
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.
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Panthers push Oilers to brink of elimination in Stanley Cup Final with Game 5 win: Takeaways
Hugh E.: The trade deadline week, Panthers GM Bill Zito makes deals for Seth Jones and Brad Marchand while Oilers GM Stan Bowman did deals for Jake Walman and Trent Frederic. Ouch! Guess Bowman can focus on improving the goaltending this summer.
Jonathan R.: Is Brad Marchand the greatest deadline acquisition of all time at this point?
S. O.: Conn Smythe by committee? Seems appropriate since Florida’s not-so-secret sauce is overlapping, redundant, and complementary depth. It’s almost mathematically impossible to give it to one guy.
Simon A.: I am as Canadian and patriotic as it gets. I bleed maple syrup and venerate the Habs… But I have to admit, this Florida team is INSANELY good, perhaps the best NHL team I've ever watched in 34 years of age.
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Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch knows his team isn't out of this series just yet: "We've been through difficult situations before and it's just another one we'll overcome."
Brad Marchand, asked what the 2011 version of him would think of his present-day self scoring six goals (and counting) during the 2025 Stanley Cup Final:
"Man that guy's good looking. That'd probably be it."
Sam Bennett doesn't care about how much time the Panthers have spent leading, though: "We don't pay attention to the stats. We try to play the same game every night."
The series may only be 3-2 but the Panthers have spent quite a lot more time leading than the Oilers have, per Sportsnet.
Total time leading in Stanley Cup Final
Panthers 5, Oilers 2
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The Panthers have scored heaps of goals this postseason, leading to all sorts of historical records and notes:
With only two goals scored in the first two periods, tonight's game looked a lot different than all the others in this series. However, with the teams exploding for five goals in the third, we have yet another game in this series with at least seven total goals.
This is only the second Stanley Cup Final in NHL history to see at least seven goals in each of the first five games, along with the 1980 series between the Islanders and Flyers.
Furthermore, the 39 total goals we've seen in this series are already tied for the 12th most in any Stanley Cup Final.
If the Panthers do indeed win the Stanley Cup in Game 6 on Tuesday, they would become the first franchise to clinch each of their first two championships on home ice since the Kings did so in 2012 and 2014.
That's also a feat that the Oilers accomplished in clinching their first four titles all at home in the 1980s.
The Panthers will host the Oilers on Tuesday with the chance to lift the Stanley Cup for the second straight year.
Reigning champions own an all-time record of 27-10 in potential series-clinching games in the Stanley Cup Final. However, the only team in the past 27 years to clinch a repeat in their first attempt is Pittsburgh in 2017.
Similarly, Sergei Bobrovsky has tied the NHL record for most road wins in single postseason by a goaltender with 10. And just like the team record, the last goalie to do so was Jordan Binnington with the 2019 Blues.
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The Panthers have tied the NHL record for most road wins in a single postseason with 10, equaling a mark achieved six previous times, most recently by the 2019 Blues.
With his second goal of the night, 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, as you can hear in the video below.
Our projection model now gives the Panthers a 78 percent chance of winning the Stanley Cup, leaving the Oilers with a 22 percent likelihood of pulling off back-to-back victories.
Virtuoso performance from the Panthers tonight. They’re the only team in the NHL that would have lost Game 4 in that fashion only to go into Edmonton 48 hours later and win convincingly. Literally the only one. Nothing rattles them. It’s their super power.
The Stanley Cup will be in South Florida on Tuesday night. The question is whether the Panthers will parade it around their ice for a second year in a row or if the resilient Oilers can bring this series back to Edmonton for a second straight Stanley Cup Final Game 7.
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Can’t tell if I’m more impressed by the Panthers or surprised by the Oilers tonight.
Taking two in a row from Florida to win the Stanley Cup will be a tall order for Edmonton.
The ending of this game featured some rough stuff but not quite at the level of Game 3. It was enough for the refs to run out the clock and get everyone out of here. The Panthers are the only ones laughing, though. The Oilers and their fans are stunned after that loss.
It's all over in Edmonton. The Panthers are now one victory away from winning their second straight Stanley Cup. The Oilers need to win Game 6 on the road in Florida in order to play another game here at Rogers Place.
Some pushing and shoving between the two teams as the game ends, which we've seen almost none of tonight, but nothing too serious develops.
