Oilers or Panthers? Which team should 30 other NHL fan bases support in the Final?

The Stanley Cup Final matchup is set, and it’s a good one. In one corner, the Florida Panthers are back for the second year in a row with a chance to avenge last year’s loss and finally capture the first championship in franchise history. In the other, the Edmonton Oilers, featuring the best player in the world and a dynamic supporting cast, are looking to bring the Cup back to Canada for the first time since 1993. It’s quite possibly the two best teams in the league, and certainly two of the most exciting. The whole thing should be pretty great.

So who you got?

You’ve probably already made up your mind, which is completely fine. But sometimes, you’re not sure, and could use a nudge. That’s where I come in, with my annual rooting guide to the final for the other 30 fan bases. We’ll look at all the factors in play, and come up with a suggestion for which team you fence-sitters could choose.

Read The Athletic’s full Stanley Cup Final preview. 

This year brings an interesting dynamic, as the Panthers are the first losing finalists to return the next year since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. Last year, when they were facing the Vegas Golden Knights, they were my recommended pick for 18 of the 30 other fan bases. But this year, with a new opponent and a subtle season-long heel turn, can they maintain that level of support? Let’s find out…

Last year’s recommendation was to be loyal to your expansion cousins from Florida, and that’s still a valid option. But I feel like Adam Henrique’s OGWAC chase might tip the scales here. Besides, if the Oilers win the Cup with Corey Perry in the lineup, maybe they’ll finally stop crying about that goalie interference non-call in 2017.

Pick: Oilers

It won’t be easy for old-time Bruins fans to back the Oilers, a team that beat them in the final in both 1988 and 1990, denying Ray Bourque the Stanley Cup that he never could win in Boston. But it would be even harder to root for a Panthers team that’s ended the Bruins’ season in each of the last two years, so suck it up, grandpa.

Pick: Oilers

Sabres fans tell me that they’re still feeling OK with the Sam Reinhart trade, but that doesn’t mean they’d want to watch him potentially win the Conn Smythe Trophy with the team they gave him to. Then again, watching Connor McDavid lift the Cup for the Oilers one year after seeing Jack Eichel do it with Vegas would be a painful reminder of what the world might look like if a ping-pong ball or two had bounced differently in 2015. I think the tiebreaker here is Kyle Okposo, who gave it all for the Sabres and deserves his ring.

Pick: Panthers

At some point, if Hurricanes fans want to hold a grudge against every team that’s swept them in the conference finals, that’s going to end up ruling out the entire Eastern Conference. Still, you won your only championship by injuring the Oilers’ goalie, so sending some good vibes their way now wouldn’t be the worst move for your karma.

Pick: Oilers

It feels like the Oilers are the obvious choice here, if only because their win would be proof that the whole, “Win the lottery and draft a can’t-miss franchise player named Connor” plan is fool-proof. The complicating factor here is Corey Perry, and that whole weird situation that we’ve all apparently decided to just forget about. Are Blackhawks fans holding a grudge on that? If so, feel free to go Panthers, but my gut is that McDavid and the Oilers work a bit better.

Pick: Oilers

The Panthers once threw rats at you, then delayed your inevitable first-ever Cup win with so much unnecessary overtime that nobody outside Colorado has any recollection of it to this day.

Pick: Oilers

Today, the Blue Jackets have missed the playoffs in six of the last 10 years, winning just a single playoff round in all that time. Guess what? Two years ago, the exact same stat was true of the Florida Panthers. Granted, Florida had just won the Presidents’ Trophy, so it’s not quite an exact comparison. Still, for any Blue Jackets fans out there desperately looking for hope that things can turn around somewhat quickly, the Panthers’ story works a little better than, “Luck into winning a lottery, draft a franchise player and then wait nine years.” Mix in some lingering Sergei Bobrovsky love, and I think we have our answer.

Pick: Panthers

You just lost a tough Western Conference final in six games, and the disappointment of falling just short in a winnable series is still fresh, so you can go ahead and spite-cheer for the Panthers.

Oh, hey, neat, that’s the exact same thing we could have said a year ago! Isn’t that neat, Stars fans? Huh, they don’t seem to think it’s very neat.

Pick: Panthers

You can absolutely find it in your heart to root for Ken Holland to get one last Cup ring in what might be the final year of his career as an NHL GM.

Pick: Oilers

I realize that playoff battles can leave a lingering bitterness. But after three straight years of getting your doors kicked in by the Oilers, I think the best play here is to hope they win the Cup and then ease up on the throttle a bit. Besides, you don’t want Drew Doughty to find out that you were rooting for Matthew Tkachuk.

Pick: Oilers

Paul Fenton and his kid still work for the Panthers, right? (Double-checks.) Yep.

Pick: Oilers

OK, Canada, huddle up.

The Habs are the first Canadian team we’ve reached on our list, so we have to do some quick housekeeping. And yes, that means we have to talk about the whole “Canada’s Team” thing, which everyone in this country instinctively resents no matter what the pizza restaurant says.

I get it. Some of you are going to root for the Oilers because you want the 31-year Cup drought to finally end. More of you will root against them, because you want your team to end the drought, not somebody else. It’s fair to say that we’ve been over this debate.

The point is that there’s a good chance that if you’re Canadian, you already have your mind made up on this. And that’s fine. But this post is for the undecided cohort, which means that for each of the Canadian teams, we’re going to assume for the sake of argument that you’re neutral on the whole Canada’s Team deal. In other words, you’re at least open to the idea of rooting for a Canadian team.

In Montreal’s case, it would be tempting. The Panthers are a division rival, and the Canadiens and Oilers somehow never faced each other in a final despite combining to appear in eight in a row in the 1980s. But last year, I suggested that Habs fans root against the Panthers, and commenter Derek F. told me that “you can’t seriously expect Habs fans to root against a team that knocked out the Bruins, sent the Leafs into an existential meltdown and then stomped on the aggravating Canes … I feel the Panthers should win for services rendered at this point.” You know what, his point holds up, especially after the Panthers nuked the Bruins again.

Pick: Panthers

Mattias Ekholm deserves that Stanley Cup ring he couldn’t quite get in 12 tries in Nashville.

Pick: Oilers

Remember Sunny Mehta? He was a genuinely ground-breaking hire by the Devils in 2014, one that established them as a future-facing franchise in a league where the 200 Hockey Men still ruled. He’s in Florida now, and seeing him get a ring would be a nice reminder that the Devils were (and remain) on the right track.

Pick: Panthers

If the Oilers win, you get to be this year’s Ultimate Loser. If the Panthers win, you get to watch Kyle Okposo finish his OGWAC story, and somewhere, Bill Torrey will be smiling. Yeah, not a real tough call here.

Pick: Panthers

The Panthers eliminated the Rangers in the Eastern Conference final. (Eliot J. Schechter / NHLI via Getty Images)

It’s too soon to root for the Panthers. And besides, the Oilers supplied you with roughly half of your 1994 Cup-winning team, so you can send them some goodwill.

Pick: Oilers

The Senators have had a low-key rivalry with the Panthers over the last few years, but I’m not sure that it’s been quite nasty enough to decide this one. I think it may come down to whether you think a Stanley Cup championship for Matthew Tkachuk would inspire little brother Brady, or teach him a valuable lesson about forcing your way out of smaller Canadian markets. I’m like 60 percent sure it’s the first option, and on behalf of Senators fans, I’m willing to roll the dice and find out.

Pick: Panthers

Hey, remember when you guys had a kid named Sergei Bobrovsky but instead, you gutted your team so you could sign Ilya Bryzgalov for $51 million? Wouldn’t it be fun to watch him single-handedly win a Stanley Cup while your team languishes in hopelessness? No, it would not.

OK, that’s actually last year’s paragraph cut-and-pasted. We could probably dial down the “single-handedly” and definitely pump the brakes on the “languishes in hopelessness.” But I think the general sentiment remains.

Pick: Oilers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Do you know who’s apparently working as the Panthers’ scouting and development consultant these days? Former Penguin Patric Hornqvist, a fact I mention mainly so that I can point out that he’s still wearing his hockey jersey in his official team front office photo. I’m not sure why that makes me laugh, but it does. Anyway, he once scored a Cup-winning goal for you, so root for him now, if only so we can put off the “Has Connor McDavid already surpassed Sidney Crosby?” discussion for a little while longer.

Pick: Panthers

The Oilers have Evander Kane, and they just made Joe Pavelski sad. Forget those guys.

Pick: Panthers

As the league’s resident newbie, it’s never a bad bet to just go with the most recent expansion team. Besides, it would be nice to get a blueprint from somebody on how to beat the Oilers, since you’re stuck in their division.

Pick: Panthers

Wait, the Oilers were mired in the basement and written off before firing their coach and then making a miraculous recovery to the verge of winning the Stanley Cup? That’s your schtick! Plus, the entire fan base is still doing that weird thing where you act like the Tkachuk brothers play for you even though they don’t, so…

Pick: Panthers

The Panthers have finally fought their way out from your shadow, and the classy thing to do would be to root for them to bring the Cup back to the Sunshine State. Real hockey fans are not classy, so…

Pick: Oilers

There was a time when McDavid and the Oilers weren’t far off from where the Leafs are now — the team with top-end talent that had no idea how to put it all together into something that could actually win in the playoffs. Them winning in year nine would be a reminder that sometimes things take longer than they should, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never happen. If you can get past the Team Canada thing, I don’t think this is an especially tough call, especially since it would come at the expense of a Panthers team that was reckless in last year’s second-round win. Besides, Zach Hyman always busted his butt in Toronto, and he deserves a ring.

Pick: Oilers

Utah

I’m sorry to be the one to break this to new fans in Utah but, as a new and nontraditional market, everyone in Canada is going to be weirdly annoyed about you for years to come. You might as well embrace it. Besides, as the quasi-continuation of the Coyotes, you’re obligated to root for Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

Pick: Panthers

It’s always tough when you lose to a rival and then watch them go to the final. On the one hand, you resent their success. On the other, if they win, you can feel like you were right there. I’m just not sure that’s a good feeling for Vancouver fans, who probably don’t want to spend the summer feeling like they were a Thatcher Demko injury away from this being their moment instead of Edmonton’s. Besides, wouldn’t you want to see Roberto Luongo finally get a ring?

Pick: Panthers

Vegas Golden Knights

You beat the Panthers last year in a series that didn’t have any ridiculous level of controversy or lingering bad blood. Basic sports etiquette would suggest that you should root for them to get the Cup now.

Pick: Panthers

Southeast for life, maybe. But with Alexander Ovechkin about to break the goal-scoring record Wayne Gretzky mostly accomplished as an Oiler, you can at least root for Edmonton fans to enjoy the Cup before you take that away from them.

Pick: Oilers

As with last year, a lot of this comes down to how you feel about Paul Maurice. Was he the coach who quit on you, pleading burnout before almost immediately taking another job somewhere else? Or was he the veteran who gave you all he had before knowing it was time to walk away, and you wish him the best? I think that’s a tough call, and I’d understand if some Jets fans are getting a little tired of everyone fawning over the Paul Maurice Comedy Hour. But then you think back to all those old Smythe Division scars the Oilers inflicted, plus the Evander Kane factor, and maybe you can bite the bullet here.

Pick: Panthers

And that brings us to the Flames, a team that the more alphabetically astute readers will have noticed we skipped along the way. I’ve saved them for last, because I don’t think there’s a tougher call in the league.

First things first: Rooting for Edmonton is never, ever an option. The Battle of Alberta is by far the Flames’ greatest rivalry, and has been for multiple generations. It’s one of the great rivalries in the sport, period, and it’s one that’s absolutely coated with bad blood. No self-respecting Flames fan would ever cheer for the Oilers to win a free coffee in Roll Up The Rim, let alone the Stanley Cup. It’s not even up for discussion.

That said, the other option is Matthew Tkachuk, who quit on the Flames in 2022. He forced his way out of town, pushing the Flames into making a blockbuster trade that they now regret. He didn’t want to play in Calgary, then immediately took a discounted deal to commit to Florida, of all places. And, by the way, he did all that after being an absolute bust of a playoff performer in Calgary, a detail that gets skipped over now that we’ve all anointed him as the league’s next great postseason stud. As a Flame, he was supposed to be the franchise, but he never lived up to it. Then he quit, using his leverage to mess up his ex-team on the way out. Now, Calgary fans have to watch the hockey world throw flowers at this guy?

Mix in Sam Bennett doing a discount version of the same act, and how do you root for the Panthers, even knowing that their win would make Edmonton fans sad?

We have to pick one. Those are the rules. I’ve been doing this column for years, hundreds of picks in all, and it’s always one of the two teams. It would take something cataclysmic for me to ditch that longstanding rule. But from a Calgary fan’s perspective … you know what, I think this qualifies.

Pick: For the first time in the history of this column, I’m refusing to make a pick and instead suggesting that Flames fans just sit this one out entirely

(Top photo of Connor McDavid: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)