Front Burner - The Oilers’ historic Stanley Cup final comeback

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

After going down three games to zero against the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final, the Edmonton Oilers won the next three games in a row to tie the series.It’s a feat that’s only been accomplished twice, and both times were in the 1940s.Can the Oilers complete one of the greatest comebacks in pro sports in game seven tonight?After a long cup drought for both Edmonton and Canada, what would the win mean for the city and the country?And what would a ring for Connor McDavid’s status among the best players ever?Daniel Nugent-Bowman is the Oilers reporter for the Athletic. Mark Connolly is the host of CBC’s Edmonton AM. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Ali Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. Let's go, Oilers! Let's go, Oilers! In hockey, going down three games to none in a playoff series is basically a death sentence.

Doubly so if it's in the Stanley Cup final. But this year, after that happened to the Edmonton Oilers, they bounced back with an 8-1 win. And the fans responded with the loudest Shania Twain sing-along I've ever heard. They've now won three games straight to tie the series against the Florida Panthers. And so in a season that started so poorly that the Oilers fired their coach, it ends tonight in a Game 7 where the Oilers could bring the Stanley Cup to Canada for the first time in decades. To talk about what this means for the city, the country and for star Connor McDavid's legacy, I'm joined by two of the world's best Oilers resources. Daniel Nugent-Bowman is the Oilers reporter for The Athletic, and Mark Connolly is the host of CBC's Edmonton AM.

Hello to both of you. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Mark. Hi, nice to be with you. That brace is a little high for me, but I'll take it. Yeah, absolutely. Take it. Just take it. So, guys, off the top, before we get started, I have to admit something to you. I am from Calgary. Oh, my goodness. And anyone from Alberta will know this is the deepest, most bitter rivalry of all time.

So, I understand if you want to stop the interview now. But I'm going to tell you with all sincerity, caveat that I'm only speaking for myself. I know other Calgarians who might disown me for this, but hand to God, I am all in on the Oilers now. I'm super excited for them. And I'm really happy to be having this conversation with you. We're happy to have you on the bandwagon, Ellen. That's fabulous news. I'm originally from just outside of Toronto, Mississauga. So that might even be worse for people in Alberta. So don't feel too badly. We'll take you as well. We're all friends here.

So, Mark, to start, can you just give us a vibe check? Like, how is it feeling in Edmonton ahead of Game 7? Even, you know, as you just walk around the city. It is amazing right now. It is. The vibe is off the charts. It's vibrating, the vibe. This has been 18 years in the making.

I went out for a walk with my wife and the dog yesterday morning. And as I'm walking, people are saying to me, what do you think is going to happen to Maura Mark? I think Oilers will win. Don't worry. And I'm talking on the phone to a CBC producer at the time and talking about the game and walk by a woman's inner garden. And she says, tell him this. And I'm like, okay, how does she know what I'm talking about? Walk by a guy with an Oilers jersey. I drove over to pick up some dirt and there's some kids on the boulevard of 75th Street, which is a major road, and they're waving flags and getting people to honk. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, we have really gone to max Oilers right now because

everybody is in on it. Everybody, even those like you, Allie, who may not be the biggest Oiler fans in the world, some people who don't even watch hockey. They've been texting me, sending me notes on Twitter and other emails and whatnot saying, listen, I know I'm not an Oilers person, I'm not a hockey person, but man, this is great for the city. So let's talk about how we got here. Daniel, to understand how much the Oilers have overcome to get here, I think that we need to talk about where they were in the fall. So if you could give me just your quickest, simplest summary,

why did the way that they started this season cause some people to kind of write the Oilers off this year? Yeah, I would say it even starts at the end of last season when they lost in the second round to the Vegas Golden Knights. And they lost in six games. And they lost the last two in a fashion that really annoyed them. Like they gave away, they felt these last two games. And that kind of really spurred on this copper bust mentality

that Leon Dreisaitl and Connor McDavid vocalized. And it just from there, it was the right intention, but it just did not work out properly at the beginning of the year. So they had a couple of guys get hurt. You know, they had Connor McDavid get hurt early in the year for a couple of games and guys couldn't score. They couldn't, you know, the goaltender couldn't make a save. Two goaltenders, Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner.

And it was just this snowball effect where everything went wrong. And they were 2-9-1 and had lost to the very lowly San Jose Sharks that had just allowed 10 goals in consecutive games. And everyone knew the Sharks were going to be one of the worst teams in the league. Hammered away from McDavid. Kane to keep it alive. Centers and a legs at the zone. And the Sharks will hang on for their second win in a row. The final score, San Jose 3. That was the turning point in terms of Jeff Jackson, the new CEO of Hockey Operations,

deciding to make a change and bringing in Chris Knobloch as coach. The start of the year could not have gone any worse, but the fact that they were able to overcome it has given them, I think, a lot of resolve in this playoff run that they can overcome deficits that they've had the last three series. And I mean, you were mentioning Connor McDavid for people who are not hockey fans. To put that in context, I think it's fair to say probably that he's considered like the best player in the world right now. Mark, I want to get you to help me put this in a little historical context because you reported on the Oilers for decades. And this sounds a lot like, you know, the real glory days of the team back in the 80s when they had Wayne Gretzky. There's a new punch on the block in the National Hockey League.

The Edmonton Oilers. By name, the Oilers have won the Stanley Cup. The Edmonton Oilers, the Stanley Cup champions of 1985. Oilers win the Stanley Cup 87. How does the team built now around Connor McDavid make you feel different from the Gretzky team? Well, back then, Gretzky was acknowledged as the best player in the planet as well coming up. And when the Oilers put their team together

and they started gathering these other players who would turn out to be Hall of Famers as well, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, who was a defenseman, Grant Fuhrer. So when that team really hit it and won that first Stanley Cup, now they had Wayne Gretzky at the center, but they also had so many other players. Now, fast forward to all the dark years of the Oilers. I mean, they did a run to the Cup in 2006 for sure, and that was a fluke. But the years after that, they call it here the decade of darkness. I mean, the Oilers kept losing and losing. They kept getting first round picks.

They still couldn't break through. But that led to them getting in 2015, Conor McDavid. Once again, as a 17-year-old, he was thought to be, okay, this is the next great player following in the footsteps of Gretzky. But it's not as easy to put a team probably together now as it was in the 80s. It only took Gretzky like five years, right, to win that cup. And this has taken the Oilers now, I think, what are they in their eighth or ninth year with McDavid. And they've managed to build a team. But this team is not full of future Hall of Famers, it seems. I think Dreisaitl probably is. But it's a different feel. I mean, Edmonton is bigger. Sports is bigger. Back then, it felt like a small town. It's like you'd see Gretzky everywhere. You'd see the players. You'd see them at Barry T's,

which is a local bar in Edmonton. But it's amazing how there are some similarities in that they've managed to pull this whole city together and feel like, yeah, this is our team. And I love the way people talk about that because it just is a feeling beyond sports even. You know, it's a great – there's so many things to get sad about and, you know, that are out there happening. But I go back to a quote. Actually, it's kind of from a strange place. Earl Warren, who is a justice of the Supreme Court in the U.S., he says, I always turn to the sports section first. The sports section records man's accomplishments.

The front page says nothing but man's failures. So the sports section is the toy box, as we used to call it. This is where the fun happens. And tonight is going to be so much fun, but it could be heartbreak. Well, it will be heartbreak for somebody. Hopefully not us. Hopefully not us. I'm saying us. I'm saying us. Thank you, Allie. We appreciate that. So, you know, Daniel, with any Canadian team, there's also been a second storyline that follows them into the playoffs. You know, not unlike the kind of drought Mark was just describing for Edmonton specifically. This is a kind of crazy championship drought that the whole country has had, right? So, I mean, how long has it been since a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup?

Yeah, it's been 31 years and we'll see if it goes into year 32. It's quite unfathomable. Just the math doesn't add up. Seven teams north of the border. Granted, Winnipeg only came back in 2011, but since the Montreal Canadiens won in five games over the Los Angeles Kings, no Canadian team has gotten back

and won the Stanley Cup. Now, there have been some incredibly close calls. Vancouver has reached the Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final twice. Vancouver transformed into a war zone. The reason for all of this chaos? A hockey game lost by the hometown Canucks to the visiting Boston Bruins. For the first time in 39 years, the Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup. Edmonton, as Mark mentioned, did so in 2006. Calgary, two years prior. So these Oilers will

be the fifth team to get to Game 7 of the Cup Final. And Montreal and Ottawa have also gotten to the final, just didn't get quite that far. Yeah, I don't know if the cup drought really, you know, matters to the players per se. I mean, like they're from all over the world, although this Oilers team is predominantly Canadian. They're trying to win for themselves, for their teammates. But it's something I think that casual kind of hockey fans really gravitate toward.

And I say casual because for as much as, you know, people in Edmonton sure love the oilers and are sure into this and people like mark said i've got some friends that uh barely know what i do but they they know enough to to uh to kind of text me and say hey are you at this game tonight yeah i've been at every i've been at every game actually but all of a sudden they're interested but i think if you're a fan of the calgary flames or you're a fan of the of the vancouver canucks who the oilers beat in the second round you're not cheering for the Oilers you're cheering for anyone but the Oilers which in this case obviously is the is

the Florida Panthers right but it is a very odd set of circumstances that here we are 31 years later and no Canadian team has done it. I'll just note on that my partner is one of those Flames fans that you were talking about. Like so much so that a couple of weeks ago, a friend in Portland was walking through Portland, sees this naval show on the water with all these boats. And there was a Canadian naval boat and had like a Canadian flag up and also had an Oilers flag. And he sent us a photo of this. And my partner was like, sink it, sink the ship. Hey, I totally respect that, Allie.

I totally respect that. Because in 2004, when the Flames were in the final, my wife said to my eight-year-old, oh, are you going to watch the game? Are you cheering for the Flames? He goes, the Flames? He says, ABC, mom. Anybody but Calgary. That child was raised right, Allie.

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In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. search for money for cuts. Getting back to kind of the story of this season, you know, they end up going on this crazy 16-game winning streak. And then in the playoffs, it doesn't go perfect, but they beat LA. And in 2024, the Oilers victorious, dispatching the Kings in just five games. And then they beat Vancouver. And the Canucks did not And then they beat Dallas. Mark, can you tell me about, you know, how the energy in the city built as the Oilers kept winning?

What I would say is that Edmonton and being from Calgary, you probably know this a little bit, we're a bit of an underdog. Yeah. Right? As a city. We're kind of overlooked throughout the city when you've got Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, the three biggest cities. When people look to Alberta, they think about Calgary being the oil capital kind of thing. Edmonton kind of gets short shrifted. I think a lot of Edmontonians feel that way. So when our hockey team can do this sort of thing, we feel like, okay, we got a place at the table and this is a special thing for us. But this story in itself, if the Oilers can come through and win this tonight,

it's not only, you know, Connor McDavid, the greatest player probably of his generation, finally leading his team to that Stanley Cup that was thought that, okay, this is the kid that's going to do it. And it's taken such a long time. And then the comeback for 3-0. There's just so many elements to this story to make it such a dramatic thing. This should be a movie, Daniel, not just a sports coverage. I mean, if they do make a movie about the Oilers, I hope that the theme song is La Bamba. And I'm wondering if both of you feel free to jump in here. Why is everyone yelling, play La Bamba, baby? Dan, do you want to tell that story? It's a great story.

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of elements to it. And the first, obviously, is the late Joey Moss. couple of elements to it and the first obviously is the late Joey Moss. He is the most famous member of the Oilers and the Edmonton football team who never actually played. Moss was part of the Oilers since Gretzky brought him on board to work in the team's dressing room in 1985. He was there before us, he was there after us. He was part of the Oiler family but he was more than that, he was like a brother to all of us as players. He was just so beloved in the city. As somebody who was our longtime dressing room attendant and had Down syndrome. He was so outgoing.

And I only met Joey a couple of times close to the end of his life. Because I was a very recent Edmontonian here. But if you talk to some of the guys that knew him from back then. And one guy i knew i was still to you know an active player on the team uh sam gagne just what he meant to the team in the city and that that was joey's favorite song moss loved to perform and one of his favorite songs was la bomba he came when he passed away the year after because there was COVID, but that became their team's wind song. And then the play La Bamba Baby comes from, you know, Ben Stelter.

This little super fan who just lit up everyone's life. How'd you think Zach Hyman played today? Good. I think he plays really good. Thanks, Ben. You're welcome. today good i think he plays really good thanks ben but just blown away with his personality how he was so energetic and brought so much life into the room it was an instant friendship every time i was around him i felt so connor mcdavid and leon dreistadl and zach hyman especially like those those guys really gravitated toward this kid who was just supposed to be a fan who came on the ice as somebody who was had brain cancer, and obviously didn't have too many more good days left. But he became kind of the poster child and mascot per se of the run in 2022. He ultimately passed away that summer. ultimately passed away that summer. But those two people, Joey Moss and Ben Stelter, were really kind of shining lights around the team at different points of their history. And that song

has just become like an anthem for this team over the last few years. And people just love to hear that song, obviously, because it means they've won a game. But it also, people think of those two people that were really big in the Oilers' history. Okay, so getting back to this incredible story of the Oilers' playoff run here. They won three series. They made it to the final. But then they're up against the Florida Panthers and they lose the first three games, which puts them one loss away from elimination. So Daniel, put this in context for me. Just how bad are the odds for a team to come back from that when they're three games to none? Yeah, it would be one of the most remarkable comebacks in pro sports history, not only because of the 3-0 deficit that they're know, that was during World War II,

some players missing on both teams. Just a completely different time. And they only played two series back then because there were only six teams in the league. Now that Leafs comeback was the only time out of 28 tries in the finals that a team has come back to do it. For this stage, it would be, like I said, maybe the greatest comeback in pro sports history.

And I think with this team, just kind of the stuff that they've overcome early in the year, even though they were devastated to be down 3-0 and lose that third game on home ice, and you could tell just listening to Connor McDavid, you know, within 12-24 hours, by the next time they're on the ice, you could tell there was this real sense of belief that they felt like they really could do it. So, Mark, take me back to that moment when they were down 3-0. You know, Daniel was just talking about the team feeling like they could overcome this. But did people in Edmonton seem like downtrodden by that, defeated? Like, did they seem to believe that it was still possible

to win? Well, it's funny because I was, you know, I came into work the next morning and I was feeling, I was feeling kind of down. I thought, oh, this is, I knew what the odds were. You know, I covered sports for a long time and I knew how impossible it could be. I was actually surprised by the reaction I got from people saying, you know what? They're good enough. They should have won two of those games. They'll win. They'll win game four. They can come back from this. They're good enough. They should have won two of those games. They'll win game four. They can come back from this. They can get after it. And I thought, wow, okay. And of course, it was an amazing win in game four. I mean, that was a huge win. And I think that pumped up everybody's belief every more because they were so dominant. But I got to admit, I'm sure many of us felt down

three nothing that, okay, this is such a long shot. I don't know. Can they do it? But just getting here to game seven, now it doesn't feel like it's going to be enough. You got to win. You got to win, right? And this is going to be a story for the ages. It'll be one of the greatest stories in history if they can pull it off. So, I mean, I don't want to jinx anything, but I have to ask, Daniel, what do you think a win here tonight would mean for the legacy of Connor McDavid? You know what? I think he's one of the greatest players to ever play. Now, he is the first to admit that he needs to win to be considered one of the greatest players of all time. He said that in the fall when a few of us were talking to him back in September before

the season even started. If that's what he thinks, I mean, a win here, I think, would cement his legacy as one of the greatest players to ever play. I mean, you look at what he's done already. He just turned 27, and he's just a handful of points shy of 1,000 already in his career. For this day and age, that's remarkable. He'll be either the third or the fourth, depending on how fast he does it, but third or fourth fastest player to ever get 1, thousand points behind gretzky and lemieux and potentially

mike bossy for somebody to be able to dominate the way he has and again a 32 team league where there's so much parody like with due respect to wayne gretzky he was doing it at a time where there were a lot of bad teams in the league. McDavid's doing it in a much tougher era, a much tougher scoring era. Bold words, Daniel. Yeah, I'm not saying necessarily he's better than Gretzky, but I'm just saying there's the argument to be made, right? And because of the league being what it is,

I've always been of the belief that he does not have to win a Stanley Cup to be one of the greatest players ever, but he feels otherwise. And so if they actually do win this Stanley Cup, I think he's right there. He's basically cemented a place on hockey's Mount Rushmore. Well, I think if he doesn't win a Stanley Cup, there will always be an asterisk next to his name. Greatest player in history, possibly, but didn't win a cup. I mean, he doesn't want that. He does not want that. He wants to be known as a champion, not as a great player, which he will be,

but as a champion. That's important. Just another day at the office for Connor McDavid. But this assist, special. The 34th of this postseason, breaking a record held by Wayne Gretzky. How do you guys keep doing this? We believe, honestly, we believe.

We believe in each other. We believe that, you know that we can get through it We can get through anything He means like everything, basically Just a legend He is just godlike He's phenomenal He's not quite Gretzky yet, but I think he's right below

Mark, I know you hinted a bit at this earlier But what do you think a win would mean for the city of Edmonton? Oh, it'll be a celebration. It'll be wild. I'm going to be broadcasting tomorrow night from downtown during the game. Rogers Place is sold out. I'm not sure if you knew this, but there's 18,000 people inside Rogers Place watching the away games. That's sold out.

The fan zone around the arena, the Moss that's sold out the fan zone around the arena the moss pit and then the fan zone just on the other side of the street they expect probably another 20 000 people in that area and other people will just be on the street watching screens so it'll be an absolute craziness on on game night but i think it'll it'll be a sense of pride and a sense of relief after so so long and give people just a sense of pride and a sense of relief after so long and give people just a sense of, hey, our team did it and we were part of it. And the Oilers crowds were so loud and so positive. I think they can take a measure of the victory, right? They can feel like they were part of it and they did something for the Oilers. We brought them back and everybody will

feel like it's their win as well and a win for the city as well as the team. Yeah. And if I could just jump in real quick, because when I moved to Edmonton almost six years ago, you hear about in Ontario, about all those 80s Oilers and Mark touched on that, of all those Hall of Famers, seven Hall of Famers on that team, plus Glenn Sather, the coach. And I thought, well, I'm going to do a bunch of the flashback stories because those are the coach. And I thought, well, I'm going to do a bunch of the flashback stories because those are really cool. And I quickly learned that people treat those teams with such reverence, you know, some of the greatest players and teams ever.

But that's two generations ago now. You'd have to be younger than 40 to have any memory of those teams. And there's a segment of Oilers fans that's just starving for their team, this generation of players, to make an impact and win. Mark touched on the decade of darkness, but there's more than that. In the 1990s, the Oilers were basically a farm team for the NHL. They almost lost the team in the mid-90s. And that too, right?

The Oilers, now they have a real team that the mid nineties. And that too, right? Like the Oilers, now they have a real team that, that has a chance to win. And, and I think fans just, just want them to get that final victory so badly. Well, I am rooting for you and look,

Mark, I also want you to know, I'm also just a big fan of Edmonton, like legit. I think it's a great city, wonderful people, great arts, and we'll be rooting for you. We appreciate that.

And hopefully the Oilers will win it for their fans, for the city, and for the whole country. I say we, other than my partner. I can't speak for him. Tell him he's welcome if he wants to jump on in the last minute. Thank you guys so much. Thanks, Allie. You're very welcome. Thanks, Ali.

You're very welcome. All right, a special shout out to CBC producer and Oilers superfan Julia Lipscomb for her help on this episode. I'm Ali Janes. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. See you tomorrow, baby! See you tomorrow, baby! For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.