EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Connor McDavid had a goal and an assist in the opening period to boost Edmonton, Stuart Skinner stopped 34 shots for his hometown team and the Oilers capped an improbable run to the Stanley Cup final by defeating the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Sunday night.
Zach Hyman also scored – as did McDavid, on a power play in the first period – and Evan Bouchard had two assists for the Oilers, who won the Western Conference in six games and will compete for the Cup for the first time since 2006.
They will head to Florida for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, a series set to open on Saturday night. The Panthers are playing in the title series for the third time after being defeated by Colorado in 1996 and losing to Vegas in five games last year.
Mason Marchment scored midway through the third period and Jake Oettinger stopped eight shots for the Stars, who finished the regular season with the second-best record in the NHL – 113 points, just one behind the New York Rangers in the race for the Presidents. Trophy.
But the Stars, like the Rangers, let a 2-1 lead slip in the conference finals. Dallas scored five goals in Game 3 to take the series lead; the Stars scored four goals in total in the next three games.
Oettinger went to the bench with about 2:20 remaining, but the Stars made just two shots the rest of the way, their desperate attempts to tie the game and extend the series falling short.
Just by reaching the Cup final, Edmonton did something truly extraordinary – reaching the title series after falling 10 points out of a playoff spot during the regular season. Entering games on Nov. 24, the Oilers were 5-12-1, 10 points behind Seattle and St. Louis for the final wild-card spot in the West and 19 points behind Vegas for the top seed in the conference.
Those days are long forgotten now.
That’s when the Oilers — a few weeks after Kris Knoblauch took over as coach from Jay Woodcroft, who was fired after a 3-9-1 start — snapped an eight-game winning streak and began the long climb out of the cellar of NHL.
Starting with that eight-game winning streak, the Oilers – who had a 16-game winning streak shortly after the eight-game winning streak ended – were the best team in the NHL until the end of the regular season. They went 44-15-5 the rest of the way, leading the league in goals (239) and goal difference (plus-76) in that span.
And now, the final awaits.
Edmonton is just the third team in NHL history to reach the Finals after being 10 points or more out of a playoff spot; the others were Toronto in 1958-59 and St. Louis in 2018-19. The Blues won the Cup that season.
The Oilers made just three shots in the first period of Game 6. That was enough.
McDavid opened the scoring with a spectacular goal, cutting through traffic before beating Oettinger high up to take a 1-0 lead. He then found Hyman in the slot for another power-play score late in the first; the shots at that point were 6-3 Dallas, but the score was 2-0 Edmonton and the Oilers were on their way.
