Dallas seeks revenge over rival Oilers

By David Mullen

The war with Canada has begun. 

And the conflict is not over tariffs or the border. It is over which team will represent the NHL’s Western Conference in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final beginning in early June.

Professional and college sports leagues and media often inflate the importance of a game or series by using military contrasts. The road to a championship is a “war.” A playoff series is a “battle between two teams bringing heavy artillery.” An effective “field general” employs the best strategy and tactics to “conquer the opposition.” A home team must protect “their turf.”

In hockey, the comparisons run deeper. Players have “weapons” and are “captured during battle.” When they violate normal conventions, they are penalized and have to serve sentences in a public, plexiglass prison called the penalty box. 

The NHL Western Conference Finals, which began on May 21, features the Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers. Their rivalry has emerged because they have a history against each other and both teams are evenly matched. This series promises to be worthy of the military hyperbole, and luckily, the battle will cease on or before Monday, June 2. 

For years, the Stars and the Oilers have been two of the top teams in the NHL. The Stars have played in three consecutive Western Conference Finals. The Oilers beat the Stars in last season’s conference finals to reach the Stanley Cup Final, a hard-fought 4 games to 3 series loss to the Florida Panthers. 

“I think we’ve learned a lot the last two years,” Stars goalie Jake Oettinger told NHL.com. “That’s all we wanted after we lost last year is this opportunity. The fact that we get to play Edmonton again makes it even better.”

The Western Conference Division Champion Winnipeg Jets have already been eliminated. The Stars dispatched the 56-win, 116-point Jets in six games, after defeating the 102-point Colorado Avalanche in seven. In the regular season, the Stars were 2-1 in games versus the Oilers.  

Both the Stars and the Oilers are built on player depth, offensive fire power and goaltending. The Stars entered the playoffs without two of their best players. Leading goal scorer Jason Robertson missed the first series with the Colorado Avalanche with a lower body injury. Defensive whiz kid Miro Heiskanen returned midway through the second round series with the Winnipeg Jets after suffering a lower body injury in January. Dallas is at full strength. 

In facing the Oilers, the Stars are finally playing with a complete roster. Their four lines are complete and formidable. The top line of Mikael Granlund, Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen have only played together for a few dozen games. Granlund and Rantanen have proven to be outstanding late season acquisitions, and Hintz is the ideal complement.

In Mason Marchment, Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson, the Stars will have to rely on more offensive production missing in the first two rounds. Veterans Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin will also be looked upon to provide more scoring. Frankly, any scoring.

 Oettinger has been the lone Stars goalie used in the playoffs, except for one and one-half periods during the Game 4 debacle against Colorado. He is 8-5 with a 2.47 GAA. Expect the Oilers to pepper Oettinger with shots from a stout offensive rush.

All eyes will be on Oilers center Connor McDavid. Entering the league as a 19-year-old phenom, McDavid, now 28, has become the NHL’s best player. Center Leon Draisaitl gives the Stars — and the rest of the NHL — fits. The speed of Edmonton’s north-south offensive approach will keep the Stars on their skates. The return of Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen is critical, as he has superb puck handling skills and seems to be everywhere on the ice.     

Edmonton goaltending has been a bit chaotic in the playoffs. After starter Stuart Skinner was ineffective early in the first-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings, the Oilers turned to veteran goalie Calvin Pickard, who played admirably. Pickard is now injured and the Oilers must rely on Skinner. His play will make or break the Oilers return to the Stanley Cup Final. “It’s going to be a hard fight,” Skinner told NHL.com.

“Obviously they’re [Stars] a really deep team,” McDavid told NHL.com. “It’s the conference final, so everybody is going to be a good team. They have scoring all over. I think they have eight 20-goal scorers or something like that. They’re incredibly deep, have good [defensemen], great goalie. They have a really good team, it’ll be a good test.”

Dallas won their only Stanley Cup in 1999 and last appeared in the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the truncated 2020 season modified by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year is different.

“The young guys, like [Thomas Harley], Wyatt [Johnston], [Robertson], myself, the guys that hadn’t had any experience, we have all the experience in the world now,” Oettinger said. “It’s up to us as a group to take that next step and I think we should feel great about what we’ve done with the adversity we’ve faced. I think our best hockey is yet to come.”

The 2024-25 Dallas Stars may not be the best team in their 54-season history, but it is their deepest. They had nine players with double digit figures in goals, and that list does not include late acquisition Mikael Granlund’s 22 goals (seven in Dallas) and Tyler Seguin, who was lost early into the season with hip surgery. Twelve different Stars had goals in the first 13 playoff games.

Dallas is a slight favorite, thanks in large part by holding the home ice advantage. I think the Stars will win in seven games. They are healthy and motivated. But the series is sure to be “fought in the trenches” causing many “battle scars,” so to speak.