Another Stanley Cup Final loss would put Corey Perry in the history books for all the wrong reasons.
If the Edmonton Oilers fall to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final, Corey Perry will have been on the losing end in four out of the last five Stanley Cup Finals.
Some NHL players don’t even make it to one Stanley Cup Final, let alone five. That’s how many times Perry has been to the Cup Final in total, with his first-ever Stanley Cup Final appearance coming in just his second season in the NHL at age 21.
It was during the 2006-07 season that the Anaheim Ducks defeated the Ottawa Senators in five games, with Perry able to hoist the Cup on home ice. His howitzer of a slap shot in the third period of Game 5 with three minutes remaining was the cherry on top in a 6-2 victory.
But Perry would not appear in the Stanley Cup Final again for another 13 seasons. By then, he was 34, playing the role of grizzled veteran alongside Joe Pavelski and Jamie Benn on an up-and-coming Dallas Stars team.
A strong performance in net from Anton Khudobin helped lead the Stars to the Cup Final, where they faced the Tampa Bay Lightning.
With the Lightning up 3-1 and looking to finish things off in Game 5, Perry kept the Stars’ hopes alive, scoring in double overtime. The Lightning would close things out in Game 6, but Perry had shown he still had something left in the tank after being bought out by the Ducks the previous offseason.
Perry would again assume the role of veteran and teacher during the 2020-21 season alongside Eric Staal on a rambunctious Montreal Canadiens team.
Division realignments for the season due to COVID-19 protocols meant that the Canadiens would only play Canadian teams. The top four teams from each division would also qualify for the playoffs instead of the top three plus two wild card teams.
This allowed the Canadiens to squeak into the playoffs with 59 points. But once they were in it, goaltender Carey Price turned up another gear.
First, the Canadiens overcame a 3-1 series deficit against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round before sweeping the Winnipeg Jets in round two. Price had a 30-save shutout in Game 2–which finished 1-0–of that series.
The brilliance of Price was especially on display in the semi-finals against the Vegas Golden Knights, with the Canadiens proving victorious in two out of three overtime games in the series, including Game 6’s victory which sent them to the Cup Final.
Perry was at the forefront as well, putting up 10 points over the course of the playoffs. Good enough for fourth-most on the team.
Another Stanley Cup Final defeat would await Perry however, as he suffered the same fate as the previous season to the same exact team.
Surely Perry couldn’t make it back to the Cup Final for a third consecutive time, with yet another team? Well, that’s exactly what he did in 2021-22. The old saying, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” rang true for Perry as he signed a two-year deal with the Lightning ahead of the 2021-22 season.
Again, Perry was no passenger in the playoffs as the Lightning marched to the Cup Final after finishing third in a stacked Atlantic division. The former Hart Trophy winner finished the playoffs with the fifth-most points on the team (11).
However, the Lightning would face a dominant Colorado Avalanche team in the Cup Final, a team that had lost just two games in their Cup run. The Lightning would take two from them but no more than that as they fell in six games to the Avalanche.
In 2022-23, the Lightning would again finish third in the Atlantic and again face the Leafs in round one. However, the Leafs would get the last laugh this time. Unlike the previous season when the Lightning had defeated the Leafs in seven games, the Leafs would close things out in six games this time around. Perry’s run of trips to the Stanley Cup Final had ended.
Perry’s 2023-24 season and his journey to becoming an Oiler have been well-documented by many media outlets, although the reasoning behind his contract termination by the Chicago Blackhawks remains an unknown.
After dispatching the Kings for the third consecutive postseason and enduring arduous series against the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars, the Oilers have been stymied offensively by the Florida Panthers and most notably their goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky.
Perry’s impact in this playoffs has been minimal compared to some of his past performances. He has just one point in 15 games and was a healthy scratch in Game 2 of the Cup Final before drawing back in for Game 3.
The Oilers are one loss away from not only losing, but being swept on home ice. Life can be cruel and it appears that one of its enjoyments involves sending Perry to the Cup Final just to shatter his dreams.