Oilers open up about crushing loss

It’s been nearly two months since the Edmonton Oilers lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to the Florida Panthers.

And lest Edmonton fans were finally getting over the heartbreaking defeat, they were served a brutal reminder of it in the form of the latest episode of The Drop on the team’s Oilers+ streaming service.

As it had done throughout the 2023-24 season and the Oilers’ ensuing playoff run, The Drop provided a behind-the-scenes look at Edmonton’s most recent season with unprecedented access. That included being in the locker room following the team’s season-ending defeat, in which it failed to make good on overcoming a 3-0 series deficit to force a winner-take-all Game 7 in Sunrise, Florida .

As has circulated on social media, the footage includes a locker room full of stunned Oilers players sitting in silence — many of them still in their full gear — after the game. In the background, you can hear the Panthers’ championship celebration taking place on the ice, including the public address announcer revealing that Oilers superstar Connor McDavid had been awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy, which is presented annually to the MVP of the playoffs — a rarity for a player on a losing team.

At this point, seemingly every major professional sports team possesses its own in-house production team, many of which create their own series similar to The Drop . Why let shows like Hard Knocks and 24/7 have all the fun when you can not only do it yourself, but spin it with your own messaging?

Some efforts are better than others, with many of them falling victim to a fan-friendly approach that often feels more like an informercial than a docuseries. In this instance, it would have been easy for the Oilers to fall back on tropes like filming a closed door or relying on postgame press conference footage. But to the franchise’s credit, it made good on providing viewers with unprecedented access — even if that’s not what its fans likely wanted to see.

[ Oilers+ ]

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