After another Stanley Cup Final loss, how can Oilers finally get over the hump and end Canada’s Cup drought?

Edmonton’s Oilers were inch to reach the Nhl’s Mountainintop, but eventually reduced to this year’s search at the Stanley Cup. For the second consecutive season, the Florida panthers defeated the Oilers to capture the Lord Stanley Cup.

After the 5-1 defeat on Tuesday in the game 6, it turned out to be an emotional scene on the bench of Oilers. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and many others were visibly annoyed before joining the more respected tradition by Hockey on the hand line.

“Obviously his ancestor was fantastic” Said McDavid. “They tilted the track. They could be over us all over the place. They could never generate any impulse in the ice. It continued to try the same things again and again, giving our heads against the wall. The credits to them. They played well.”

Like McDavid, Draisaitl shared a frustrated feeling.

“The takeaway is that we did not win,” Draisaitl said during the availability of postgame media. “No one cares. We haven’t won so we’ll try again next year.”

The oilers will have to do some soul in search of this summer when they try to return their list to return to the hope of a return trip to the biggest stage of the NHL. Given this, let’s take a look at what the Oilers have to do to put in a better position to capture the final hockey prize.

A low season may be required

The low season of 2025 could be the most important in the history of the Oilers franchise. After losing to the Stanley Cup final for the second consecutive year, the franchise faces the hunting reality that Connor McDavid plans to become a free agent without restrictions after the 2025-26 season.

Edmonton will have to try the hardest to prove to McDavid that he should remain in the only NHL city he has known since the selection with the number 1 global team in the 2015 NHL draft.

Based on McDavid’s postgame comments on Tuesday, Oilers Superstile is clearly frustrated when leaving for the return seasons. It is very difficult to blame it when the oilers have, possibly, two of the first five players of all the sport, however, they still manage to miss a championship.

The low season could be one that requires an extreme change depending on how the Final of the Stanley Cup of 2025 ended. After all, the panthers passed the 10-3 oilers to the last two games of the series.

Panthers have transformed the “culture” of the cliché in catalyst behind the Stanley Cup races on their back

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Forward Corey Perry, Connor Brown, Trent Frederic, Kasperi Kapanen and Jeff Skinner will be free agents without restrictions this summer. It is difficult to imagine that the five forwards are re-signed with Edmonton this season, and the team could want to go in a different direction.

Oilers have planned to have about $ 12.3 million in salary space this summer based on their current payroll. Although Edmonton will probably be injected with Mitch Marner’s outings, it would not be impacting to see that the Oilers improve their first six groups of forwards.

Perry could probably return for another season if you want it. After all, apart from McDavid and Draisaitl, Perry was probably the most productive striker in Edmonton in the Stanley Cup final and showed that he can provide value in the first six after the loss of Zach Hyman to a wrist injury that ended the season.

Brown is a very affordable half striker who scored five goals throughout the Playoffs of the Stanley Cup. These are the types of players that can be the glue of a Stanley Cup winner, so Brown would also make sense to return.

It will not be a huge surprise if the oilers are extremely aggressive this summer, both in the free agency and through the commercial market.

Find a franchise goalkeeper

Like having a franchise quarterback in the Nfl, NHL teams He must have a franchise goalkeeper who manages his fold. The Oilers have failed to receive a reliable goal in the last two finals of the Stanley Cup, which finally turned out to be the different in both losses in series.

In a nutshell, something must change for this franchise. An NHL team with aspirations from the championship must find a netminder of trust that can change the tide of a game or a series. We saw it on the opposite side with Panthers goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky, allowing a goal to each of the last two games of the Stanley Cup.

Stuart Skinner has proven to be a solid goalkeeper sometimes, but he has ultimately not great when the lights are brighter. At first glance, free agent’s goalkeeper options are exactly nothing to write at home. The Oilers would be looking at Jake Allen, Alexandar Georgiev, Alex Lyon, Ilya Samsonov or Vitek Vanecek when it comes to free agents available. However, some of these options are not an update of Skinner and they may not even be an improvement with respect to Calvin Pickard’s backup.

This causes the Oilers path to find a fairly dark upper level goalkeeper.

In order for the Oilers to acquire the type of goalkeeper they can charge, it should probably come through the commercial market. Franchise networks do not grow exactly on trees. In the same vein, if a NHL team has this elite goalkeeper, they probably do not pass away unless they are offered.

Looking at the NHL depth graphs, most teams are probably not willing to separate with their franchise goalkeepers, while their backups are not an update on Skinner, if, at all. However, there are a few teams that the oilers could call to see if certain grandchildren are available for the right price.

Oilers CEO, Stan Bowman, was able to contact the capitals of Carolina Hurricanes or Washington, as they both have very impressive tandems at the moment.

When it comes to hurricanes, the team has entrusted Veteran Frederik Andersen again and again to the post -season. Pyotr Kochetkov has seen his much action, included in the Playoffs of the Stanley Cup, and has collected a record of 27-16-3 to go with a 2.60 goals, at the height of the average and a percentage of .898 in 47 games during the regular season of 2024-25.

Kochetkov has not been given the opportunity to be “the boy” apart from when Andersen was out of programming due to injury. Speaking of the history of injuries, Andersen has dealt with multiple injuries in recent years, so hurricanes can hesitate to break their goal tandem. However, it is worth doing -the tires.

The capitals also have one of the best tandems in the league at Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren. The team acquired Thompson during the 2024 NHL project after Vegas Golden Knights had been to Adin Hill as their holder. Thompson thrived in his first season in the capital of the country and even signed an extension of six -year contract with the franchise.

With the capitals committed to Thompson in the long term, the franchise may be ready to participate with Lindgren for the right price. Lindgren had a record of 20-14-3, a 2.73 goals in the average and a percentage of .896 in 39 regular season games by 2024-25. The 31 -year -old may not be an elite option, but it can be worth shooting the dice as a rhythm for the oilers.

As for how it might seem like a commercial package, Oilers may have to separate with one of their main proponents, perhaps a defender like Darnell Nurse or Mattias Ekholm, to acquire an update to goalkeeper’s position.

As the low season unfolds, one thing is safe – the oilers will probably leave no stone without any Win the first Stanley Cup of Canada since 1993.