June 4, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

I’m sure you’ve heard about the parallels between this year’s Stanley Cup Final and the last two Stanley Cup Final rematches by now. Wayne Gretzky and his 1983 Edmonton Oilers lost to the New York Islanders in 1983, then beat them in 1984. Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 and beat them the following year. They both involved generational talents that lost in the first edition of the matchup, as does this year’s series.

Connor McDavid is looking to repeat the pattern of those greats that came before him by getting revenge for last year’s loss to the Florida Panthers. McDavid was quick to downplay the connection to Gretzky and Crosby when asked about it during Tuesday’s Stanley Cup Final media day. “I see the parallels that everyone wants to write about. At the end of the day, this is a different story, different teams, different group. Just excited to have another kick at the can here, that’s all.”

The second part of that question was about the lessons that McDavid has learned since last year. There’s an old story about those 1983 Oilers walking by the Islanders dressing room after the Stanley Cup was awarded and seeing players holding ice packs rather than cans of beer. Crosby did a commercial for the NHL that featured a picture of dejected Penguins players after losing the Stanley Cup Final in 2008 where he said “I never want to be in this photograph again.”

Rather than going onto the ice to accept the Conn Smythe Trophy, McDavid stayed in the dressing room with his teammates to be there with them in that difficult moment. The scene with him crying as he was taking off his equipment was unforgettable.

McDavid didn’t offer any specifics about the lessons that he learned from last year. “You hear everybody say ‘just keep giving yourselves opportunities to be in this position, keep giving yourself chances to win, and eventually it happens’. We’ve done that. We’ve put ourselves in another good spot, learned a lot of lessons last year in that month that we can use this year.”

One of the things they learned from last year is about handling the emotions of the series, which is something McDavid has talked about. “I think this run has felt different than last year” observed McDavid after advancing to the Stanley Cup Final. “It’s felt very normal. I don’t want to say ‘boring’ because it’s not boring at all, but it hasn’t been as emotional, you know. We haven’t had the highs, we haven’t had the lows, just kind of been steady… I think that’s put us in a good position. Those games can be emotionally draining. We’re not drained.”

Related: Less emotional exhaustion is a plus for the Oilers

It’s also about simply being comfortable when the lights are shining brightest in the biggest moments. It took McDavid until Game 2 to get on the scoresheet in last year’s series, and he didn’t score until Game 4. For a player that has averaged 1.59 points per game in the playoffs in his career, that’s an uncharacteristically slow start to a series. If the gold medal winning goal that McDavid scored in overtime against the United States in the 4 Nations Faceoff is any indication, then he has become more comfortable in the biggest moments. He has proven that he can come through when it matters.

As much as handling the emotions of the series and being comfortable in the biggest moments matter, I would also argue that those aren’t “lessons”. They’re byproducts of having been there before.

Coming that close to your lifelong goal and falling short hurts. Stuart Skinner opened up about his struggle to deal with last year’s loss during his media day interview on Tuesday.

“You kind of just stuff things down because it’s kind of the easiest way to kind of deal with something like that, so I stuffed it down. I’m normally pretty good with that kind of stuff, I normally open up the wound pretty quickly; but it took me a little while last summer. Who really helped me with that was my wife. I was like ‘oh, I’m totally fine’, and she was like ‘I don’t think you are’… That opened up the wound and I was able to process it and take care of it, and now it’s in the past.”

The lessons are learned while you’re processing and taking care of the wound. It isn’t just about waiting for the sadness to go away. That kind of situation forces you to ask yourself some hard questions about who you are. Why did you fall short and what has to change before you can achieve your goal?

It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of thinking you’ve got things figured out and that if you stay patient, good things will happen to you. There’s nothing like having the opportunity to achieve a goal and falling short to put your ideas into question. Your ideas about yourself and the way you conduct yourself get challenged when you face a loss like that. The self-analysis that follows can be brutal, but it’s only from that brutal self-analysis that lessons that truly facilitate change happen.

McDavid’s off-ice training last summer is a good example of one change he made. As he told Sportsnet’s Mark Spector in September 2024, “I went with a little bit of a different strategy this summer. In years past, it’s just been very volume heavy, very go, go, go. Throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. That strategy, as well as it’s worked for me, I think about the beginning of last year. I was just very tired and fatigued from a long summer of training, and was not feeling very good on the ice. And it translated.”

The Oilers held captain’s skates for two weeks before last season’s training camp, and they started off slowly. This season, they didn’t make the same mistake. You can also tell that the Oilers were not being as physical during the regular season as they have been in these playoffs. You’re kidding yourself if you think that wasn’t by design. The team identified fatigue in late June as an issue, and they have taken steps to address the issue.

That’s just one example involving something that we can all see. There is likely so much more that McDavid and all of his teammates thought about and learned about themselves over the summer. Those things are deeply personal to each person, and they can be transformative.

Imagine being told you’re something special your entire life. You grew up thinking you’re destined for great things because that’s what everyone told you. Then as an adult, it doesn’t go according to plan. You experience all sorts of obstacles and bumps in the road that prevent you from meeting the lofty expectations you and everyone else have for you. You might come close to achieving something big, but then you fall short. No matter what you do, it feels like it’s not enough.

Imagine the frustration that would come from that. The lofty expectations and the results not lining up would create all sorts of doubt. You would be confident in your abilities; but deep down, that doubt would start to create problems that make life so much harder.

Every great player goes through a story like this. They dominate their sport at every level and grow up thinking they’re destined for greatness. Then they turn pro and get the expectations of saving a franchise and being the next great player in that sport heaped upon them. They face all sorts of questions from the media about if they’re good enough to fulfill their destiny by winning a championship until they finally win. They all appear outwardly confident, and they might be fully confident in their abilities; but when they fall short for a bunch of years and come so close to achieving their goal and fail, that doubt has to creep in.

If McDavid’s lack of enthusiasm for Spector’s question about the Oilers’ ability to defend during the second round of these playoffs is any indication, McDavid is sick of answering questions. He’s been answering questions about the team’s ability to defend throughout his whole career. He also spent this whole offseason answering his own personal questions and addressing those things.

McDavid and the Oilers have a chance to put the questions to rest. They can remove all doubt as to who they are if they can finish the job in this year’s Stanley Cup Final.

Related: Oilers vs Panthers II: Stanley Cup Final preview