By STEPHEN WHYNO

AP Hockey Writer

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — At the height of his hockey career after winning the Stanley Cup last year with the Florida Panthers, Matthew Tkachuk had a message for Connor McDavid at the Edmonton Oilers captain’s lowest point of his career in the handshake line immediately following Game 7.

“We’re gonna see you again next year in it,” Tkachuk said.

McDavid did not think much of it at the time. Sitting with a larger-than-life photo of Tkachuk raising the Cup over his left shoulder Tuesday on the eve of the rematch, he found it “funny to look back on how it’s worked out.”

“Two good teams then, two good teams now,” McDavid said. “Let’s get after it.”

The Panthers and Oilers meet again in the Stanley Cup Final that begins with Game 1 Wednesday night in Edmonton looking like two NHL powerhouses on a collision course.

“I believed that it was going to be us two again,” Tkachuk said. ‘I think we’re the two best teams in the league. And if everything would go to plan, it would probably be us two again in the finals.”

There were plenty of twists and turns along the way, from a series of anticipated and unexpected offseason departures last summer through a long regular season and even playoff stumbles. At every turn this spring, Florida and Edmonton seemed to flex just the kind of muscles teams need to win when it matters most.

The Oilers lost their first two games in the first round. They’ve won 12 of 14 games since.

The Panthers lost the first two games of their second- round series and fell behind 2-0 in Game 3. They’ve gone 8-2 since.

That kind of dominance made another cross-continental championship series feel inevitable. The only question is whether it will end with Florida going back to back or whether McDavid, the undisputed best player in the sport, finally hoisting the Stanley Cup.

“Winning in the playoffs takes everything you’ve got,” McDavid said. ‘All of our energy is in going into beating the Florida Panthers. There should be nothing else on anyone’s mind.”

What is the same? Edmonton still has McDavid and longtime running mate Leon Draisaitl, and they’re the top two scorers in the playoffs with 26 and 25 points apiece. Florida still has its core led by Tkachuk, captain Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and all-world goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.

The Panthers are in the final for a third year in a row after falling short against Vegas in 2023 when injuries piled up. Their confidence has only grown.

“We know how hard it is to make it this far, to make the finals,” Barkov said. “The first year we went, we were all like, ‘Wow, this is something new for us.’ I think last year was more like, ‘OK, we’re here again, let’s do the job.’ This year, we knew it was going to be hard, but here we are again. Every year is a little different, but it’s the same excitement and same goal: We want to win it again.”

What is different? Brad Marchand and Seth Jones have joined Florida’s repeat bid, an injection of star talent by general manager Bill Zito at the trade deadline. Defenseman Niko Mikkola is also much improved.

Edmonton has some new faces, too, after losing young Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to restricted freeagent offer sheets by St. Louis in August. GM Stan Bowman signed John Klingberg and traded for Jake Walman and Trent Frederic to give the team more experience for just these occasions.

“We’re better equipped this year,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We’ve got, especially up front, a lot more physical players.”

The vibe around the Oilers is also different, graduating from just being excited to be in the final to having much more left to accomplish, like the Panthers felt last year.

“We’ve been here before,” Knoblauch said. “We know what to expect. We’ve seen this team before. There’s a lot of familiar things about this.”

The Oilers are allaround healthier this time with veterans Evander Kane and Mattias Ekholm back, but they lost valuable top-line winger Zach Hyman to injury late last round.

‘Hyman is a huge loss in this series for Edmonton,’ ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro said. “You can’t take one of your top four or five forwards and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re just going to replace him with somebody else.’ That will be a significant loss. He does so much for them.”

What got them here? The regular season was wholly unremarkable for everyone involved. Florida lost seven of its last 10 games going into the playoffs and finished third in its division, just like Edmonton.

They each opened every playoff series on the road — just the second set of finalists to do that in NHL history after Los Angeles and New Jersey in 2012. The Panthers are 8-2 and the Oilers 6-3 away from home.

“We are very confident at home,” Ekholm said. “We know what our crowd brings, and it gives energy every time we play at home. But I do think we’re confident on the road, as well — as I know that they are.”

These teams also handled adversity like the Eastern and Western Conference champs they now are. The Panthers rallied from their deficit against Toronto and pounded the Maple Leafs in Game 7, then left almost no doubt in the East final against Carolina, a gentleman’s sweep in five.

The Oilers dug themselves a 2-0 hole against the Kings in the first round, gave up a goal with 0.4 seconds left against Vegas in the second and lost the series opener to Dallas in the West final.

“We bounce right back,” Ekholm said. ‘That’s the biggest strength of this team is just every time we seem to have our backs against the wall, we respond and we play our best hockey and bring it the next day. I think that’s a big part of what I think makes us a bit different.”