It is over. The 2023-24 NHL season ended with a Stanley Cup championship for the Florida Panthers. They won it for the first time in franchise history with their 2-1 victory in game seven.
That means another year without the Stanley Cup for the Edmonton Oilers. They were so close to ending the 30+ year drought for Canadian-based teams but they fell just short.
It was a brilliant year for the Edmonton Oilers. They battled through a lot of adversity and still found a way to appear in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Final.
Still, they didn't get it done. These are the three biggest reasons that the Edmonton Oilers aren't Stanley Cup champions in 2024:
The Edmonton Oilers went down 3-0 in the series which set them back
Only one team in NHL history has ever erased a 3-0 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final and there were only six teams in the league at the time.
It is almost impossible to get it done when you dig a hole like that. Edmonton came close but they were just short. If they won one of those three games to open the series, they'd be Stanley Cup champions right now instead of the Panthers.
Coming into next season, all they will care about is getting back to the final. You can bet that they will be much better early in any given playoff series than they were in this final.
Sergei Bobrovsky and Florida's great defense had a lot to do with it as well. Edmonton was snake bitten early on and that was one of the big detriments to their chances of winning.