LeBrun: If Game 1 was any indication, we’re in for another long, incredible Stanley Cup Final

EDMONTON, Alberta – The hype became reality in Game 1 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.

What we saw Wednesday night was two heavyweights trading punches and counterpunches, the margins razor-thin between two teams so used to dominating their opposition for longer stretches in these playoffs.

A puck over glass penalty in overtime was the difference in the end.

A breathtaking opener, won 4-3 by the Edmonton Oilers, perhaps sets the stage for the long, gripping Final that was indeed expected.

“Its potential is to be a spectacular seven-gamer right up and down the ice,” Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said, able to appreciate the spectacle of it despite the Game 1 loss. “There’s not any casualness. … It was honest, it was hard, it was fast. And it was tight, it was an overtime game.”

Connor McDavid fed Leon Draisaitl for the winner on the power play with 31 seconds left in the first overtime period, and if it wasn’t for that bad luck penalty taken by Tomas Nosek, we might have waited well into the morning for this thing to end.

There is so little separating these two teams. The Oilers’ defense got better over the past 12 months. The Panthers’ offense got deeper.

Flip a coin.

A back-and-forth Game 1 very much put the quality of this series on display.

“It’s two great teams,” said Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm, who tied the game at 3 in the third period and blew the roof off Rogers Place. “The thing now, too, is we know exactly how they play, they know exactly how we play. It’s those little, little details that are going to matter so much in the end. It’s one lost coverage for a second here or there, or a penalty (in overtime) like you saw tonight, or whatever it is.

“It’s teams that are also very comfortable in these moments and in these high-stake games. There’s not a lot of free ice, there’s not a lot of free scoring chances out there. You have to work for everything.”

Neither team is going to get to step on the gas all night long. It’s not going to work out that way.

“Well, there’s going to be times where each team is going to have their pushes,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “To think we’re just going to dominate for 60 minutes is pretty naive from us. They’re a really good hockey team and when they do have their push, we hope we can limit how long that is going to be.”

What’s going to play out, based on Game 1, is the Oilers and Panthers making each other as uncomfortable as they’ve been doing to other teams all postseason. We saw that Wednesday night: the Panthers’ mighty forecheck pinning the Oilers in their zone for some shifts, but then Edmonton also having its way for periods of time in the Florida zone.

“It’s that tight of a game, right? It’s not like we dominated them or they dominated us,” Ekholm said.

“That’s their game,” he added regarding the Panthers’ effective forecheck. “That’s what won them the Cup last year. That’s something we’re going to have to deal with all series. Hopefully, we get better each game.”

Back and forth it went, as each team took turns looking like they were briefly in control.

“It’s such a territory game, I feel like,” Ekholm said. “When they’re pressing, it’s hard for us to get out. And we tend to ice it. And when we’re pressing them, it’s kind of the complete opposite. That territory battle is going to be huge coming down the stretch in the series.”

Herein lies one major difference from a year ago. The Oilers now understand the stage that is the Stanley Cup Final. They would have never admitted it a year ago, but they were a little overwhelmed early in that series. It’s normal. They had never been there before.

So when the Stanley Cup was on the ice as part of the pregame festivities Wednesday night, this time nobody on the Oilers caught themselves staring at it.

“When I saw the Cup on the ice last year I was kind of looking at it with googly eyes,” Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner said postgame.

“This year, seeing it, it’s, ‘I was here last year, I saw it already. So now it’s time to get back to work and do my thing.’ It definitely felt completely different just from the emotional-wise.”

That poise and experience showed itself with the Oilers down 3-1 after Sam Bennett scored on a beauty two minutes into the second period. Viktor Arvidsson cut the deficit back to one just 77 seconds later. Ekholm scored game-tying goal 6:33 into the third.

The Panthers are the ultimate closers. They were 31-0 when holding a lead at the end of the first or second period since the start of the 2023 playoffs.

Make that 31-1 now.

“I think Florida has closed out games extremely well,” McDavid said after the game. “Obviously we put ourselves in a tough spot. … I thought it was a massive goal from Arvy. Massive. Timely. And we just hung in there. And I think that is experience, as you said. It’s knowing that you don’t have to open it up, you have to hold them at three and find a way to get one and push, and we did.”

There were zero signs of panic in the Oilers’ game down 3-1. No cheating. They stayed with the game plan. That’s a team that’s been here before.

“I think we’re more experienced, obviously,” agreed Ekholm. “Those are the little details that make you stay calm and not get too excited about something that you have a lot of work left to do. Happy with the way we played tonight, happy with with the focus. I thought we didn’t deviate from the plan.”

If there was one common theme in what Oilers players had to say on media day on the eve of Game 1, it was how calm the team was entering the series this time around.

Newcomer John Klingberg said this is the calmest team he’s ever been part of.

“They talked about it, too, that during their run last year they probably felt a little bit drained, a little bit emotional,” Klingberg said. “I can really feel like this year where I’ve been part of it, we’re kind of just expecting ourselves to be here. And now we’re here. Obviously you do everything you can to get to the top, but on the run we’ve been keeping even-keeled.”

So has Florida. Don’t read too much into a Game 1 loss: The Panthers don’t get rattled. And they’re also the road warriors. They dropped to 8-3 in the playoffs on the road, as confident a team in the NHL as there is over the past three years playing away from home.

An opening win meant a lot to an Oilers team that dug an 0-3 series hole a year ago. But believe me when I say this is going the distance between two unbelievably evenly-matched teams. Game 1 told us that.