The pair had reunited for their second straight Cup Final meeting, and the Cats emerged as champions yet again.

But in the near-year since, both organizations have battled under-the-spotlight off-seasons and roller-coaster regular seasons, leaving them headed towards the end of 2025-26 with plenty of holes to patch.

Out west, the Oilers find themselves in a somewhat familiar spot — second in the Pacific, on track to make the playoffs, but with the hockey world questioning whether GM Stan Bowman has built a viable supporting cast around Connor McDavid and Co.

In the East, the season has descended into a write-off for Florida. The Panthers head into the home stretch with the second-worst record in the conference, and sit 13 points out of a playoff spot with little chance of clawing their way back in. The pain of a missed post-season run will sting less alongside their two Stanley Cup rings, but the slide does bring into question what next season will hold for the reigning champs.

As the Oilers and Panthers reunite Thursday at Rogers Place (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT), let’s take a look at a few stats that tell the story of the pair’s tumultuous seasons:

376: Total number of man-games lost by the injury-ravaged Panthers

The Panthers’ three-peat bid might’ve been sunk before they played a game or even got their training camp fully up and running. It was during the club’s very first skate of the season that Aleksander Barkov went down with a knee injury that’s sidelined him ever since. But the captain’s absence has been only one piece of a season-long injury battle for the Cats. 

Up front, Matthew Tkachuk, Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich have all missed significant time. Crucial forwards Brad Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Evan Rodrigues have gone down more recently. On the back end, top-four defender Dmitry Kulikov missed the majority of the season too, and Seth Jones — who led the team in ice-time through their most recent Cup run — was sidelined for the past two months. In all, the Panthers have amassed a league-leading 376 man-games lost to this point, per NHL Injury Viz, the injury bug robbing them of the chance to ice anything close to a healthy lineup all season.

.876: Oilers’ team save percentage

The Oilers’ central flaw this season has been a familiar one: heading into Game No. 70, their team save percentage sits at .876, the third-worst mark in the league and the worst among all teams currently in a playoff spot. The Oil are allowing the sixth-most goals against per game (3.36), and the second-most among all current playoff squads. Yet they’re also allowing the 10th-fewest shots per game, putting the spotlight on the men manning the cage — an area of concern for far longer than this season.

Bowman did try to address those concerns, swinging a five-piece deal in December in an effort to improve his team’s goaltending, moving out Stuart Skinner and bringing in former Pittsburgh Penguin Tristan Jarry. Three months later, it seems a significant misstep. Since joining the Oilers, Jarry has had the second-worst save percentage of all NHL netminders who’ve played more than two games (.855). He’s allowed four or more goals in nine of the 15 games he’s played. So rocky has the start of Jarry’s Edmonton tenure been, that head coach Kris Knoblauch has named Connor Ingram the team’s starter moving forward. Ingram hasn’t fared much better though, sporting an .895 himself. With the playoffs looming, the netminding question marks remain, and if anything, the situation seems more uncertain than before. 

.876: Also the save percentage posted by Panthers’ struggling Bobrovsky

Goaltending hasn’t been any less of a sore spot for the Panthers, but it has been more of a surprise, given the Cats have a proven veteran in the cage. Fresh off back-to-back Cup-winning runs, Sergei Bobrovsky is wading through one of the most difficult seasons of his career. There’s no doubt the team’s rash of injuries — particularly on the back end — hasn’t helped Bobrovsky’s case. Still, the situation’s become so tense — made even more so by Bobrovsky’s pending UFA status — that the 37-year-old’s name was unexpectedly floated as a possible trade chip at this year’s deadline.

Through 46 appearances this season, Bobrovsky’s posted a career-worst .876 save percentage and a 3.07 goals-against average, both marks a sharp drop-off from last year’s .905 and 2.44. Per Hockey Reference, his quality start percentage — the portion of his starts in which he’s had a save percentage greater than the average save percentage for the year — sits at .511, his lowest mark in six seasons. He’s already put up 13 starts in which his save percentage has been below 85 per cent — a stat Rob Vollman aptly dubbed ‘Really Bad Starts’ — matching the most he’s ever collected in one season, with a month still to play. While Florida’s injury situation will resolve at some point, its goaltending solution seems more murky.

1: The number of Oilers’ depth scorers who’ve managed more than 20 points

While the goaltending problem has been front and centre, the rest of the Oilers’ lineup hasn’t been without its blemishes. The key question in Edmonton has long been whether the front office can build a strong enough supporting cast around the club’s historic, star-studded core — but the numbers suggest Bowman and Co. have fallen short on that front this season.

In terms of ice time, Edmonton’s six most-used forwards this season have been McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jack Roslovic and Vasily Podkolzin. Outside of that group, the club’s found very little production: only one other forward has more than 20 points or double-digit goals (both are Matthew Savoie, with 11 goals and 28 points). For frame of reference, last season, by this point, outside of the Oilers’ six most-used forwards, the club had four players with at least 20 points: Connor Brown, Corey Perry, Jeff Skinner and Podkolzin. Look to top clubs in the West this season — Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota — and each similarly has three or four depth scorers outside their six most-used forwards who’ve topped the 20-point plateau.

89: The league-leading number of third-period goals allowed by Florida

En route to their two Stanley Cups, the Panthers were among the league’s best when it came to closing down games. Paul Maurice’s club was the epitome of winning hockey, surely in the post-season but often in the regular season, too. In 2024-25, Florida ranked as one of the toughest teams to break down in third periods, ranking top 10 in goals allowed. The year before, Florida ranked No. 1 in the league on that front, allowing the fewest third-period goals of any NHL club. Led by one of the most accomplished defensive practitioners in the game, the Cats were adept at holding down the fort in the final frame and securing the win.

This season, that script has been flipped. The Panthers have allowed more third-period goals than any other club in the league. They’ve already allowed more third-period tallies this season (89) than they did all of last season (77) or the season prior (63), with a month still to play. And they’ve been especially porous in those pivotal final frames relative to the rest of their games. In the first of the Cats’ Cup-winning seasons, only 32 per cent of their overall goals against came in the final frame. Last year was a similar story. This season, that’s up to 40 per cent, with Florida continuing to leak late goals as the losses have piled up. 

1: The number of times Edmonton has strung together three wins in a row

When the Oilers take the ice against the Panthers Thursday, they’ll be looking to win their third straight after taking down Nashville and San Jose over the past week. If they do, it’ll be only the second time all season that McDavid’s club has managed to reel off three wins in a row. The Oilers have waded through an up-and-down season — aside from one three-game streak in early January, which required two overtime goals to secure Oilers’ Ws, the club has rarely been able to find any sustained momentum, going no more than two games without taking a step backwards.

That’s a stark difference from last year’s group, which strung together streaks of three wins or more on 10 different occasions over the course of the season. And it pales in comparison to the Cup finalist Oilers group from two years ago, who managed six streaks of three wins or more, highlighted by an eight-game run in late November and a dominant 16-game heater from late December to late January. 

There has been no such momentum yet for the 2025-26 Oilers, only sputtering stretches of quality. Now, with the post-season closing in, they head into the regular season’s final month searching for some consistency, starting with a familiar opponent Thursday under the Rogers Place lights.