Will the Edmonton Oilers finish as Stanley Cup runners-up again?
Edmonton was pushed to the brink of elimination in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final on Saturday, losing Game 5 at home by a score of 5-2 to the defending champion Florida Panthers. The series now shifts back to Florida for Game 6 on Tuesday, when the Panthers will have the chance to pull off a repeat championship.
The rare Cup Final rematch between Florida and Edmonton has played out much differently than last year, when the Oilers erased a 3-0 series deficit before dropping the decisive Game 7 on the road.
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Panthers-Oilers Round 2 has been a back-and-forth battle with three overtime contests in five games. Edmonton took the series opener before Florida responded with two straight victories. The Oilers evened the series in Game 4, but the Panthers pulled back ahead in Game 5.
Now, Connor McDavid and Co. need to win two straight elimination to avoid becoming repeat Stanley Cup runners-up.
Has an NHL team ever lost back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals?
The Oilers wouldn’t be the first team to suffer Cup Final losses in consecutive seasons.
How many NHL teams have lost back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals?
Since the start of the expansion era in the 1967-68 season, there have been just two instances of the same team losing at least two Cup Finals in a row.
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Who was the last NHL team to lose back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals?
And it’s been nearly 50 years since it last happened. The Boston Bruins lost the 1977 Cup Final to the Montreal Canadiens before suffering the same fate against Montreal in 1978. Boston’s consecutive Cup Final defeats were part of a four-peat for Montreal from 1976-79.
The only other team to record consecutive runner-up finishes is the St. Louis Blues, who were defeated in three straight Cup Finals. St. Louis lost to the Canadiens in 1968 and 1969 before falling to the Bruins in 1970. The Blues wouldn’t make it back to the Cup Final until 2019, when they defeated the Bruins for the franchise’s first championship.
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