The Stanley Cup will be lifted by the Oilers-Golden Knights victor

Among a final eight that feels like a changing of the guard in hockey more than most years, with old standbys proving their age by exiting the ice until the fall, the duo of the Las and the Edmonton Oilers stand out like a sore thumb. Not necessarily because they don’t also represent the new guard of the NHL, but because a franchise that started six seasons ago is now an old head, combined with a team that hasn’t been consistently relevant in the NHL for three decades, just after Wayne Gretzky was traded away. And now, the Oilers star power, combined with an amazing start to the franchise in Sin City makes their Western Conference semifinal the can’t-miss series of the round. And I’ll take it a step further.

Whoever emerges victorious from the best-of-7 series is winning the Stanley Cup. You can count out every team from the Eastern Conference, as great as they are, because New Jersey, Toronto, and Florida don’t have the deep-round experience. And Carolina, the only team that could be considered an old head from the East, will fall on its face eventually. In the other Western Conference semifinal are Dallas and Seattle, which both don’t have the depth to keep up with the rest of the remaining teams. So, the only logical choices left are the Golden Knights and Oilers. Let me tell you why.

The Golden Knights didn’t have a player finish the regular season with more than 66 points. That’s typically a sign of an awful team with no stars and a dreadful offense. Combine that with winning the Pacific Division and being the only team to advance to the conference semifinals in less than six games and the concoction is a mystery. Yet with Jack Eichel, Jonathan Marchessault, and Chandler Stephenson, Vegas is loaded and has been for much of its existence. Stephenson has been involved with Vegas since its opening season when he was on the Capitals, who defeated the Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Final to end the latter’s inaugural season. He’s the young, up-and-comer that made sense for Washington to get rid of in re-tooling for another run at the Cup. Stephenson has turned into the exact kind of player that makes the Capitals’ front office look dumb for not choosing someone else to throw overboard.

Now onto the anthesis in the team with the most top-level star power in the NHL, the Oilers. Four players had more than 82 points on the team. The fifth-highest-point getters on Edmonton — Darnell Nurse, and Tyson Barrie — both had 43 points. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Zach Hyman will as a quartet decide the series one way or another. If the Golden Knights can’t stop them, have fun at the Bellagio. If Vegas can slow them down at all, there’s a chance for it to advance despite plenty of momentum behind how Edmonton looked to close out its first-round series against the Kings. Either way, the combination the Oilers or Golden Knights present to the other six will be too much. Congratulations to Las Vegas for winning its first Stanley Cup in franchise history or it’ll be a return to the mountaintop for one of the franchises that brought hockey to a greater audience.