Who has the edge defensively in Cup final between Oilers, Panthers?

The 2024 Stanley Cup Final is quickly approaching as the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers get set for what should be a very entertaining series. While there’s certainly a ton of offensive firepower between the two clubs, defense wins championships.

The Oilers have relied on a premiere penalty kill and a team-defense approach, meanwhile the Panthers have been backed by some outstanding goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky, playing an in-your-face style and a very deep defense core.

The battle of the back end is going to be very entertaining to watch and could quickly become the story of the series.

On today’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed who they feel has the edge defensively heading into the Stanley Cup Final:

Tyler Yaremchuk: When you look at the bluelines here, I think an interesting place to start is a nice blanket question, who has the best defenseman in this series?

Frank Seravalli: That would be the Edmonton Oilers, Evan Bouchard. I’d say he has solidified himself as a top-5 or top-7 defensemen in the league with this postseason and the coming out party. I think on the whole, it’s probably a good and interesting question to see which team has the deeper defense core but that isn’t what you asked me.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I was curious to see, I mean obviously Bouchard brings all the offense, I think the interesting case on Florida would be just how good Gustav Forsling two-way game has been, is that a fair counter-argument to say he’s a bit more reliable defending off the rush and defending in his own end?

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, I’d say, but not by much. I think if you wanna underrate Evan Bouchard in his own end to make simple plays, that’s on you. I think where the question really gets interesting sizing up these two teams is, which team has the better top-3? Which one are you more intrigued in? Is it Ekholm, Bouchard and Nurse? Or is it Montour, Forsling and Ekblad. Oh and by the way, if you wanted a fun fact, no player named Evan has ever had his name etched on the Stanley Cup before and for the first time ever we are going to have one because it’s either going to be Evan Bouchard or Evan Rodrigues.

Tyler Yaremchuk: How do you even find that?

Frank Seravalli: I saw that on social media yesterday. The Stanley Cup has been around for how long, since 18-what and no one named Evan has ever won before. Are you telling me Evan’s have only been losers to this point?

Tyler Yaremchuk: That is an absolutely wild fact, getting back to the blueline side of it, you talked about the top-3 on each blueline, Frank, but I also think there’s a part of this that might end up being who’s bottom three can just potentially survive in this series or maybe it’s better to say bottom-pair. I think of what that ferocious forecheck of the Florida Panthers and the fits it gave the New York Rangers and that Rangers blueline, they can move the puck and transport the puck. And I look at a guy like Cody Ceci, who struggled with puck retrievals and struggled to get pucks out of his own end and Philip Broberg, while he looked good in the three games he got into during that Dallas series and I think he can be solution for this Oilers team, how’s he going to handle an uptick in physicality department?

Frank Seravalli: Will he even be in the lineup?

Tyler Yaremchuk: Well there’s that too.

Frank Seravalli: Will the Oilers try to go with Vinny Desharnais with the size and ferociousness of Florida’s forecheck?

Tyler Yaremchuk: See and I think and I’ve been handling that question quite a bit over the last couple of days on the Oilers Nation side, I think that would be a bit of a mistake. I think if you’re Edmonton there’s all this talk about how are the Oilers going to handle Florida’s ferociousness and toughness, and that grittiness they play with but I think the flipside of it if you’re Edmonton, and Kris Knoblauch, to his credit, did talk about this a little bit yesterday, but it’s how about we flip the conversation on how is Florida going to handle Edmonton’s speed.

You can watch the full episode here: