Florida Panthers Repeat as Stanley Cup Champions

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers are back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.

With the chance to repeat as champions on home-ice, Florida put together a dominant performance at Amerant Bank Arena, defeating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 to stamp their name in hockey history as 2024-25 Stanley Cup champions.

They become just the seventh team in the expansion era (1967-68 season) to win consecutive Stanley Cups, and the first since the Tampa Bay Lightning did it (2020-21).

Sam Reinhart scored four goals and Sergei Bobrovsky had 28 saves tktk  in the Game 6 clincher.

In Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final Sam Reinhart was the hero, scoring the game-winning goal in a tight, 2-1 victory over the Oilers.

One year later, with the Cup on the line again, Reinhart got the home crowd on their feet early with the opening goal.

Just 4:36 into the game, Reinhart stripped Evan Bouchard of the puck near the Oilers blueline before deking past Mattias Ekholm and slipping a shot past Stuart Skinner — while falling down — to put the Panthers up 1-0.

Florida has thrived in the opening period this series; entering Game 6 they had outscored the Oilers 11-4 in the opening 20.

With 46.4 seconds to go in the first, Matthew Tkachuk put away his third goal of the Stanley Cup Final to put the Panthers up 2-0 before the break. Anton Lundell, who broke up a play leading up the Tkachuk’s goal by intercepting a pass headed for Connor McDavid with his skate, took away Skinner’s vision with a screen in front.

Reinhart would get his second goal of the night with 2:29 to go in the second period after Aleksander Barkov fired a puck across the Oilers crease that found Reinhart’s stick for his ninth goal of the postseason, giving Florida a 3-0 lead just before the final intermission.

After 40 minutes of play, the Panthers held a three-goal lead and extended their total time leading in the series to 235:49.

With their season on the line, trailing by three, Edmonton pulled their goalie with exactly seven minutes to go in the game.

Unfortunately for the Oilers, just 26 seconds after pulling Skinner, Reinhart completed the hat-trick — becoming the first Panther to score three goals in a playoff game all-time — putting Florida up 4-0.

Reinhart would score a second empty-net goal with 5:05 to g0, all but sealing the Cup for Florida. With his four goals, Sam Reinhart became the fourth player in Stanley Cup Final history to reach the feat and their first since Hockey Hall of Famer Maurice Richard did it in 1957.

Edmonton would snap Bobrovsky’s shutout after Vasily Podkolzin found the back of the net with 4:42 to play.