In addition to the novelty of the vast distance between Edmonton and South Florida, and the surprising rarity of the same two franchises skating for the Stanley Cup in consecutive seasons, the biggest pre-series story of the 2025 Final between the Panthers and Oilers was simply how evenly matched these two teams were.
Going into Game 1, the Polymarket odds set Edmonton as a slim favorite at 54 percent, which was fairly similar to what my Elo rating-powered simulations said as well (52 percent). Sifting back through the history of Elo, only four Stanley Cup Finals1 had ever started with a smaller margin in pre-series ratings than the 1.5-point gap between the Oilers (1590.4) and Panthers (1588.9). Edmonton pushed its Cup odds into the mid-60s by winning Game 1 on home ice, but Florida’s victory in Game 2 evened the series and brought things back to roughly 50-50 — with the Panthers holding a slight edge at 53 percent at Polymarket (and Elo) on Sunday:
And why wouldn’t things effectively be a coin flip at this point? Nothing has transpired to suggest these teams are not separated by the width of a skate blade. In fact, by several measures, this might be shaping up as the closest Stanley Cup Final we've seen in recent memory — if not ever.
