EDMONTON — Even as it became clear to Zach Hyman that his wrist was not right, the hockey player inside kept telling him one thing:
“Even then, you still think that whatever it is you’ll be able to play through it,” he said, wearing a cast on his right wrist on the morning of a Stanley Cup Final in which he will not take part. “Quickly you realize, when I saw the doctors, that it was something that needed surgery. Something that I wasn’t going to be able to play through.
“I think I was still a little delusional, that I could play through it.”
Hyman dislocated his wrist in the Western Conference Final against Dallas on a clean hit by Mason Marchment, a blink-of-an-eye moment that takes a valuable player out of Edmonton’s lineup for this Final.
One day Hyman was on the top line of a Stanley Cup contender, leading the NHL playoffs in hits while chipping in five goals and 11 points through three rounds. Then Marchment rumbles past, catches Hyman’s right wrist in just the wrong way, and within 24 hours he’s in surgery.
They repaired his wrist, but Hyman’s 2025 playoffs were declared deceased.
The team FaceTimed Hyman from the dressing room after wrapping up the series in Game 5 at Dallas. It brought Hyman to tears.
“I was on the couch with my wife and mother in law, just watching (the game),” he said. “It caught me off guard. I was crying. It was really emotional.”
Hyman will travel with the team through the Cup Final, and he’s hoping to be at training camp come September.
Of course, it was him that spoke to the team in the aftermath of last spring’s Game 7 loss to Florida, when he told his teammates, “I know in my heart that we’ll be back here.”
Turns out, he was right and wrong at the same time. The Oilers are back, but Hyman isn’t.
“Life was a funny way of working,” he said.
Watch the Stanley Cup Final on SportsnetWith the Stanley Cup within reach, the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers are set to battle once again for hockey’s ultimate prize. Watch every game of the Final on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
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Mini Barkov faces maximum challenge
When Anton Lundell was a young boy in Espoo, Finland, his parents allowed him to set an alarm on June nights so he could wake up in the middle of the night and watch the Stanley Cup Final. (Young-dell was a big Chicago Blackhawks fan. They were reeling off Cups, and he liked the red sweaters.)
Now he imagines future NHLer dreamers from his homeland setting their alarms to watch the Finn-heavy Panthers go for a repeat.
“I’m assuming a lot of kids in Finland will do the same,” Lundell smiles on the morning of Game 1.
With Edmonton holding last change, those kids will see Lundell tasked with his greatest challenge yet: shutting down an eye-of-the-tiger Connor McDavid.
“Every team in this league has tried to contain that guy. You’re not going to do it right?” says Lundell’s wingman, Brad Marchand. “You try to work as hard as you can and try to limit how many opportunities he gets. So, hopefully you keep it to 10 or 15 instead of 20 or 30.”
Centring the best third line in hockey, Lundell has already done a number on Brayden Point, Auston Matthews, and Sebastian Aho this post-season. His plus-12 rating is the best of any forward in the Final, and he’ll tell you he’s a much more confident player than he was last year.
“He plays a complete game every night. This team is very fortunate to have him in the third hole there. I mean, his talent level is incredible. The way he can make plays in little spaces, and the way he reads ice to find space to put himself in a scoring opportunity, he’s just a great little player,” Marchand says. “It’s not often that you have a guy like that who plays 200-foot game at his age — and he’s only getting better. So, he’s going to have a very bright career.”
Glimmers of that shone first through for coach Paul Maurice in 2023, Round 2, against Toronto. Then-Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe would pull Matthews off a matchup with Selke champ Aleksander Barkov, and Lundell was able to handle the then-reigning Hart champ.
Starting in 2023-24, Maurice stopped sheltering Lundell and hasn’t looked back.
“It’s allowed us not to be a hard-match team,” Maurice explains. “They call him the Mini Barkov. There’s a reason for that. They view the game the same way — a defensive mindset first.”
The addition of Marchand, though, has improved Lundell’s offensive upside, and he has already hung five goals, a new playoff best.
“These guys are really good. He’s not even young anymore. We don’t view him as young,” Maurice says. “He’s a good centre-ice man.”
Who will be charged with containing the best centre-ice man.
Line Dance
Connor Brown took the skate after being absent on Tuesday, and although head coach Kris Knoblauch called him “a game time decision,” Brown told reports after the morning skate that he was in for Game 1.
That spot will likely come at Jeff Skinner’s expense. Other than that, we expect a familiar Oilers lineup in Game 1 to what they iced in Game 5 at Dallas:
Nugent-Hopkins — McDavid — PerryKane — Draisaitl — KapanenFrederic — Henrique — BrownPodkolzin — Janmark — Arvidsson
Ekholm — BouchardNurse — KulakWalman — Klingberg
Skinner starts
Meanwhile, Florida’s forward depth gets an early test as A.J. Greer (lower body, day-to-day) will not suit up for Game 1. Jesper Boqvist gets the tap and in his stead and will join the fourth line.
Boqvist put up three points in the two games he played against Carolina in the Conference Final.
Rodrigues — Barkov — ReinhartVerhaeghe — Bennett — TkachukLuostarinen — Lundell — MarchandBoqvist — Nosek — Gadjovich
Forsling — EkbladMikkola — JonesSchmidt — Kulikov
Bobrovsky starts
Bad Memory
Leon Draisaitl won’t lie.
That Game 7 loss from last spring? It lingers.
“You never really wipe something like that,” the Oilers centreman said. “Until you get over that hump and finish it, it’s gonna stick with me forever.”
Outside the dressing rooms, we’re making a big deal about a Stanley Cup rematch between Edmonton and Florida, and the revenge factor therein. But inside the room, is there any coaching currency for Knoblauch in reminding his charges of that loss?
“I agree with Leon’s assessment on the frustration, coming so close and losing. You’re always going to remember it, absolutely,” Knoblauch said. “But I don’t think it makes any difference who beat us last year, or who we’re playing this year.”
If anything, the familiarity helps a coach when preparing his players.
“It’s not that they changed their identity. They still played same systems, same style,” Knoblauch said. “But when we get to this point, no matter who we’re playing, we’re 100 per cent wanting to win it.”
Death to home-ice advantage
For the first time in Stanley Cup history, the two final teams standing started every one of their previous three series on the road.
So, is it really such an advantage for the Oilers to get their first taste of Game 1 at home?
The Panthers are 8-2 away from Amerant Bank Arena this postseason and will carry a five-game win streak on the road into Rogers Place Wednesday night.
Evan Rodrigues, a 10-year vet, figures he’s never played on a team so comfortable away from the comforts of home.
“We stick to our game. That’s the biggest thing,” he says. “Whether we’re at home or on the road, we don’t deviate.”
That confidence allowed Florida to rest bodies and lay off the gas down the regular-season stretch because it knew a low seeding wouldn’t hinder their performance.
“We’re a super confident team on the road this year. I think we almost prefer it,” Sam Bennett says. “No distractions. You’re with your team; you’re with your guys. Your whole focus is playing hockey.”
Maurice doesn’t fret over chasing defensive matchups, and that just-roll-the-lines rhythm on the bench leads to strong results after long flights.
“You don’t need to feel really good to play for us,” Maurice says. “You just gotta play as hard as you can. You can do that anywhere.”
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