Florida Panthers Not Afraid of Road to the Stanley Cup

FORT LAUDERDALE — The Florida Panthers will begin their trek to Edmonton today for the 2025 Stanley Cup Final and, let’s be honest, they are not exactly rookies at this.

This will be the fourth series of this postseason for the Panthers — and the fourth to start on the road.

If, and we should bold the word and not just italicize it, the Panthers were to win the Stanley Cup for a second straight year, they would be the first to do so as the road team in all four playoff series since the 2012 Los Angeles Kings.

Florida assistant coach Jamie Kompon was on that Kings staff where he won the first of three Cup championships. He also won with Chicago and the Panthers.

Even though it looked like the Panthers did not seem to care about home ice advantage at the end of the regular season, Paul Maurice made a clear distinction: It was not like the Panthers did not care, but they were not going to go out of their way to get it.

Maurice’s main objective was having a healthy team going into the playoffs. Edmonton’s Kris Knoblauch was of similar mind.

Both the Panthers and Oilers finished third in their respective divisions with Edmonton getting three more points than Florida, thereby earning home ice in this final series.

Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Panthers and Oilers is Wednesday at 8 p.m.

The Panthers fly to Edmonton later this morning.

“Both teams just worked on their games all year, right? Both teams had injuries, we had a heavy schedule this year,” said Maurice, whose team promptly won the first three road games of the playoffs and are 8-2 overall.

“We never casual about it; if you can finish first, finish first. But we couldn’t chase it with our schedule, we just couldn’t run our group as hard. If you were trying to make the playoffs, you would have a lot of injured players over those last nine games in gutting it out. Now, we were able to take some guys out. We had some small nicks and we got everyone, basically, healthy before the whole thing started.’’

Both teams have been good on the road during these playoffs.

Edmonton is 6-3 on the road after starting out by dropping the first two in Los Angeles.

Florida, since starting 0-2 at Toronto in Round 2, has outscored the Leafs and Hurricanes 27-7 over the past five road games.

The Oilers won their final two games in Dallas by outscoring the Stars 9-3.

2025 STANLEY CUP FINAL

GAME 1

FLORIDA PANTHERS @ EDMONTON OILERS

Best-of-7 Series

• When: Wednesday, 8 p.m.
• Where: Rogers Place, Edmonton
• National TV: TNT/truTV 
• National Streaming: Max
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys), SiriusXM
• Radio Streaming: SiriusXM, NHL App
• Series Schedule (all games at 8 p.m., TNT) — Game 1: @Edmonton Wednesday; Game 2: @Edmonton Friday; Game 3: @Florida, Monday June 9; Game 4: @Florida, Thursday June 12; Game 5*: @Edmonton, Saturday June 14; Game 6*:@Florida, Tuesday June 17; Game 7*: @Edmonton, Friday June 20.
• Regular Season (Panthers won 2-0) — At Florida: Panthers 4, Oilers 3 (Feb. 27). At Edmonton: Panthers 6, Oilers 5 (Dec. 16).
• How They Got Here: Edmonton d. Los Angeles (6), Vegas (5), Dallas (5); Florida d. Tampa Bay (5), Toronto (7), Carolina (5)
• Postseason History: Florida Won 2024 Stanley Cup Final 4-3
• All-time Regular Season Series: Oilers lead 23-18-0, 3 ties