Getting Past the Edmonton Oilers Should Not Be the Primary Goal for the Dallas Stars

There are 31 teams you have to beat, not just one

Just before June arrived, the Dallas Stars had to host a trophy presentation for another team.

They didn’t stick around to see Connor McDavid awkwardly try to hoist the Campbell Bowl with Bill Daly, so at least they were spared that indignity. Watching the best player in the world try to very demonstrably Do the Opposite of what he did last year was no fun for anyone except Oilers fans, being less of a celebration and more of a performative display. But then, what else would any trophy presentation be?

Fast forward a dozen days, and McDavid and his buddies aren’t feeling so chipper. Edmonton Oilers got blown out by the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, and they’ll have to win a road game on Thursday to avoid a 3-1 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final.

Game 3 was embarrassing and demoralizing for an Edmonton team that Has Been Here Before. Florida put up a ridiculous 3-for-11 statline in power plays, and today, Canadian radio will be abuzz with hosts proffering solutions for what happened, blame on the referees for letting the mean ol’ Panthers get away with so much, and blame for Connor McDavid for getting trucked by Aaron Ekblad on one of the bigger (legal) hits I’ve seen McDavid take in a while.

If you’re Edmonton, though, that game has to be a reminder of what has always been true: that Florida is Florida, and you are not. Nobody else is, really, what with Florida’s savage blend of scoring prowess and don’t-you-just-want-to-punch-us-in-the-face ability. Edmonton got suckered into a special teams bonanza in the first period, but even so, power plays weren’t really the deciding factor, as both teams had scored one power play goal through 40 minutes, when the game was 4-1 for Florida. Both teams gooned it up in a third period that ended up being garbage time in every sense of the word.