Tuesday, June 03, 2025

Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist

 

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Stanley Cup PHOTO: Josh Appel, Unsplash

Trivia Questions:

When was the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup?  What team?

 

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Jake Walman—Unlikely Player in the Stanley Cup Finals

When the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs started three weeks ago, there were four former Providence College skaters looking to get their names engraved on Lord Stanley’s Cup: Brandon Duhaime, PC 2010-2015, Forward, Washington Caps; Brandon Tanev, PC 2012-2016, Forward, Winnipeg Jets; Mark Jankowski, PC 2012-2016, Forward, Carolina Hurricanes; and Jake Walman, PC 2014-2017, Defenseman, Edmonton Oilers.

These PC and NHL veteran players have one thing in common—they all played on the Providence 2015 NCAA Championship team.

Walman was a smooth skating freshman defenseman from Toronto on that 2014-2015 Providence NCAA Championship team. He played for three years for PC before turning professional after the 2016-17 season.  In his sophomore year, he was a first-team All-American, and in his junior year, he was a second-team All-American.

In the NHL, he has played for St. Louis, Detroit, and San Jose before being acquired this March by the Oilers for their playoff run.  In early March, Walman was the least likely PC player that you would expect to be playing in this year’s NHL Finals.  He was having his best offensive career year and finished with 12 goals and 28 assists.  But he was playing for the San Jose Sharks, a team that finished dead last in the Pacific Division with a 20-50-12 record.

In exchange for a first-round draft pick from the Oilers, the Sharks sent Walman to a solid Oilers team on March 9th, a team that was in the Stanley Cup Finals last year.  Walman has played on the third blueline pairing for the Oilers and as averaged over 20 minutes/game on the ice.  In the playoffs for the Oilers, which features scoring phenoms in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Walman has reverted to the defense-first mode, blocking shots and executing bone-crushing checks on the opponents.

 

Edmonton Oilers vs. Florida Panthers Matchup

These are the same two teams in the finals from last year.  At the beginning of the playoffs, the money was on the Winnipeg Jets from the Western Conference versus the Washington Capitals or the Carolina Hurricanes from the Eastern Conference.  Here’s how the Oilers and the Panthers got to the Finals:

Oilers: defeated the LA Kings in six, the Vegas Golden Knights in five, and the Dallas Stars in five.

Panthers:  defeated TB Lightning in five, Toronto Maple Leafs in seven, and Carolina Hurricanes in five.

The Panthers are a hot franchise.  This is their third straight Stanley Cup Finals.  Last year, they ran out to a three-game to 0 lead on the Oilers, but Edmonton found their scoring touch and tied the series at 3-3.  The seventh game was a close checking affair, and the Panthers emerged the winner 2-1, winning their first Stanley Cup in their 30-year history.

Florida is loaded with explosive goal scorers, as Carolina recently found out.  Alexander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, and Sam Bennett—they are going to test Jake Walman’s defensive skill and the Oilers goalie, Stuart Skinner who lost his first three starts this postseason, but has tightened up in the past seven games, going 6-1 with a 1.41 goals-against average.  And, of course, Florida also features old friend, new enemy Brad Marchand, who will be keeping the Oilers goalie company at the edge of the goal crease all night.

Edmonton will enjoy home ice advantage, but that means nothing to the Panthers as they have won their last five road games in this postseason with a 27-7 goal scoring edge.  The Panthers are likely to be slight favorites when the puck drops Wednesday night at 8 PM on TNT.

 

Will Jake Walman Make History for PC Hockey?

The PC Friars have sent more than 50 players to the NHL.  The following five PC players have their names engraved on Stanley Cups:

 

Steve Rooney, PC 1981-1985, Forward, Montreal 1986.

Peter Taglianetti, PC 1981-1985, Defenseman, Pittsburgh 1991, 1992.

Chris Terrieri, PC 1982-1985, Goalie, New Jersey Devils 1995, 2000.

Hal Gill, PC 1993-1997, Defenseman, Pittsburgh 2008, 2009.

 

Also, Lou Lamoriello, PC 1960-1963 Forward, General Manager New Jersey Devils 1995, 2000, 2003.

Jake Walman is looking to join this group of Friars with an Edmonton Stanley Cup win.  If the Oilers do win, Walman will also make Providence College hockey history.  He will be the only Friar to have won an NCAA National Championship (2015) and a Stanley Cup Championship (2025).

He will also be joining an exclusive NHL group of players. Only thirty-three NHL players have the distinction of winning both an NCAA and Stanley Cup Championship.

 

 

Trivia Answers

The last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993 when they beat the LA Kings in five games.  The Kings, who were in the Finals with a 39-35-10 record, featured Wayne Gretzky at the end of his career.  Patrick Roy, Montreal’s goalie, was the MVP of the 1993 Finals.

Montreal also featured Mathieu Schneider from Mount Saint Charles High School in Woonsocket, RI who went to playing for the Mounties at the age of 18 years old straight to the Canadians in 1987.  He played 23 seasons in the NHL, and as an offensive defenseman scored 223 goals.

Bob McMahon is the former Director of Parks in the City of Providence and a lifelong Providence College Friar fan.


 

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