Moments after the Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers for the Stanley Cup this past June, Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, “It’s unbelievable, back-to-back two-time Stanley Cup Champions…a DYNASTY.” Last time I looked, a dynasty meant at least three Stanley Cups in a row, or like the Oilers of the 1980s and early 90s, five Stanley Cups in seven years. Maybe Tkachuk should go check the Hockey Hall of Fame website for their official list of NHL dynasties. If the 2025-26 version of the Oilers want to derail the Panthers and win a Stanley Cup during the Connor McDavid/Leon Draisaitl era, they’re going to have to dig deep and look at getting a new starting goaltender by the time the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin.
They should also study history and brush up on what Winston Churchill said: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I’m not talking about Oilers history with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier, but this current version of the Oilers remind me a lot of the New York Islanders dynasty of the early 1980s.
Many Great Teams Have To Learn To Lose Before They Can Win
The Islanders, similar to the Oilers of today, were a great up-and-coming team of the mid to late 1970s. The team was destined to knock off those great Montreal Canadiens teams for NHL bragging rights. In the 1975 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Islanders came back from being down 3-0 in two series to force Game 7 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, which they won, and against the Philadelphia Flyers, which they lost. The loss to the Flyers, the eventual Stanley Cup champions in 1975, put the league on notice that the Islanders were for real. The Islanders, like the Oilers, built the core of their team from the draft with Hall of Famers Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy, all drafted by then-general manager (GM) Bill Torrey.
Related: The New York Islanders Franchise Four
Even though the Islanders lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Canadiens, in 1976 and 1977, by the 1977-78 season, they were starting to get picked as the team most likely to eventually unseat Montreal. In 1978, the Islanders lost to the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the playoffs, and fans and pundits alike were starting to question their ability to win.
In 1979, the Islanders lost…
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