The Nashville Predators came out aggressively on the first day of NHL free agency Monday with the additions of forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault along with defenseman Brady Skjei.
Stamkos spent his entire 16-year career with the Tampa Bay Lightning after being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft.
The 34-year-old Stamkos won two Stanley Cup titles with Tampa Bay and is the franchise leader in games (1,082), goals (555) and points (1,137).
Marchessault, 33, played the last seven seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights after being an original member of the expansion franchise in 2017-18.
He was the Conn Smyth Trophy winner as play-off MVP in 2023 after leading Vegas to its first Stanley Cup championship.
Marchessault set a career high this past season with 42 goals and leaves the Golden Knights as the club’s all-time leader in games (514), goals (192) and assists (225).
Marchessault and Stamkos were teammates for parts of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
Skjei, 30, is also coming off a career season with a personal-best 47 points (13 goals, 34 assists) with the Carolina Hurricanes.
He began his career with the New York Rangers in 2015 and was traded to Carolina in February 2020.
Nashville was eliminated in the first round of the post-season in 2023-24 and has not won a play-off series since advancing to the Western Conference semi-finals in 2018.
Panthers top Oilers in Game 7 to win Stanley Cup
It took 30 years for the Florida Panthers to win their first Stanley Cup.
For Paul Maurice, the wait was nearly as long.
Sam Reinhart's tie-breaking goal late in the second period held up as the Panthers captured the NHL's most coveted trophy for the first time with Monday's 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of a memorable Stanley Cup Final.
Carter Verhaeghe also had a goal and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots - including all nine he faced in the third period - to also give Maurice his first Stanley Cup after nearly 2,000 combined regular-season and play-off games as a head coach.
Maurice is in his 26th season leading an NHL team, the longest wait of any head coach in the four major North American professional sports leagues before winning his first championship.
While Maurice and the Panthers' long streaks came to an end, another continues on as the Oilers' loss marks the 31st consecutive season a Canadian team has not hoisted the Cup since the Montreal Canadiens' win in 1993.
Edmonton was also bidding to become only the second team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup after losing the first three games of the best-of-seven finals, a feat the Toronto Maple Leafs accomplished in 1942.
Oilers' captain Connor McDavid still took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the play-offs after setting an NHL post-season record with 42 points. The superstar centre is just the second skater on a losing team to win the award, joining the Philadelphia Flyers' Reggie Leach in 1976.
McDavid recorded a pair of four-point outings in Games 4 and 5 to help Edmonton extend the series, but the three-time Hart Trophy recipient was kept off the scoresheet by a stout Florida defensive effort for a second straight game in Monday's finale.
NHL:Oilers win again to force Stanley Cup Final to Game 7
Adam Henrique and Zach Hyman scored second-period goals and Stuart Skinner was great again with 20 saves as the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 for their third straight win on Friday night to push the Stanley Cup Final to Game 7.
Warren Foegele also scored and Ryan McLeod and Darnell Nurse added late empty-net goals to help the Oilers stave off elimination again and even a series that seemed a lost cause a week ago.
Leon Draisaitl remained without a goal in this series but set up Foegele’s early goal that gave Edmonton a lead it would not relinquish, and now it has a chance to complete an improbable comeback Monday night in Sunrise, Florida.
The Oilers are the first team to tie the Cup final after falling behind 3-0 in the series since the Detroit Red Wings in 1945.
Edmonton is a win away from becoming just the second team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup after losing the first three games. The only team to do it was the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.
That victory would end Canada’s three-decade-long Cup drought.
Skinner made timely saves despite allowing Aleksander Barkov’s goal early in the third period. He has stopped 81 of 86 shots in the last three games after he gave up nine goals on 68 shots in the first three games of the series.
NHL: McDavid, Oilers drag Panthers back to Edmonton for Game 6
Connor McDavid scored two goals and set up two others and Evan Bouchard had three assists as the Edmonton Oilers held on for a 5-3 victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night to force Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Final.
Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and Corey Perry also scored for the Oilers, who staved off elimination again to send the series back to Edmonton for Game 6 on Friday.
The Oilers scored the game’s first three goals but had to hold off the Panthers down the stretch and could finally breathe when McDavid scored into an empty net with 19 seconds remaining.
Matthew Tkachuk and Evan Rodrigues had a goal and an assist apiece for Florida, which will see its 30-years-and-counting wait for the franchise’s first Stanley Cup title last at least three more days.
Four more points increased McDavid’s playoff total to 42, the fourth-most in a single postseason in NHL history. The only players ahead of him are Wayne Gretzky (47 in 1985), Mario Lemieux (44 in 1991) and Gretzky (43 in 1988).
This game started just as Game 4 did, with the Oilers scoring short-handed for a 1-0 lead. Brown tallied this time after assisting on Nike Mikkola’s tally on Saturday night.
Hyman doubled the advantage on the power play at 1:58 of the middle period and McDavid made it 3-0 just over three minutes later.
Tkachuk got Florida on the board 1:53 later, but Perry restored the three-goal cushion on a power play with 8:06 left in the second. Rodrigues cut the deficit to 4-2 14 seconds later.
The Panthers were unable to get the equaliser as Stuart Skinner finished with 29 saves.
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