Stanley Cup Final Rematch Returns to Amerant Bank Arena for First Time Since Game 7

The Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers meet again at Amerant Bank Arena for the first time since Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.

FORT LAUDERDALE — The last time Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers walked into Amerant Bank Arena, the emotions were tense.

It was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final — the Oilers having clawed back from a 3-0 series deficit and the Panthers holding onto dear life to avoid becoming the first team since the 1942 Detroit Red Wings to suffer a reverse sweep in the Final — and everything was on the line.

What came of it was one of the most consequential — and most-watched — hockey games in the past decade.

The North American viewership of Game 7 hit 16.3 million people — which still stands 200,000 viewers higher than the much-anticipated 4 Nations Face-Off final between the USA and Canada — and the stakes were at their highest.

The best player in the world had a chance to do something that had been done just once in NHL history while the Panthers were avoiding an embarrassing end to a second-straight Cup Final appearance.

In the end, it was the Panthers who got the job done in about as iconic of a way as possible.

Dmitry Kulikov shoveled a bouncing puck near a gaping cage to send Carter Verhaeghe onto the rush, and Sam Reinhart finished the job with 4:49 to go in the second period with a wrist shot that snuck past Stuart Skinner’s glove side.

One intense period of physical, defensive, tension-filled Florida Panthers hockey later, it was done. The Panthers wedged the puck into the corner during the final seconds of the game and became champions.

A lot of those memories will be running through everyone’s heads as these two teams take the ice once more.

And with the stretch run coming up with 23 games remaining on the schedule, it may very well be just what the doctor ordered.

Is it going to feel a bit different with Matthew Tkachuk, Florida’s emotional leader and physical driver, likely out of the lineup with an injury? Yes.

But that was also a factor the last time these two teams met in Edmonton when Aleksander Barkov was missing with an injury. Florida still managed to outgun the Oilers to the tune of a 6-5 victory that December night.

Even still, the goosebumps are going to be there.

Those colors, on that sheet of ice, in a building that has become so lively since the Panthers lifted the Cup on that night in June — it is going to be a must-watch hockey game.

It’s a shame that it was not picked up on national television in the United States.