Corey Perry bashed after Oilers’ dressing room footage of devastating SCF loss is released

The most vulnerable moment of the Edmonton Oilers players’ career was shared on social media earlier on Friday as footage of the dressing room following the team’s 2-1 loss at the hands of the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final was shared on the web. The video is gut-wrenching, especially when not only see the Oilers’ players crying and dealing with the grief of defeat in the dressing room, but also hear NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announcing their captain Connor McDavid has the playoffs’ Conn Smythe winner. It’s easy to understand, with the help of the footage, how McDavid did not go out on the ice to accept the award.

The video was trending all day, but so was Oilers veteran forward Corey Perry, who unfortunately set a new, unfortunate, record when he took part in the Stanley Cup final. When Perry faced the Panthers this past June, it was a Stanley Cup Final appearance with his fifth different team, having previously played in the Finals with the Anaheim Ducks, Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning. He did hoist the Cup in 2007 with the Ducks, but that’s where the success rate ends. When reaching the Finals in 2020 with Dallas, in 2021 with Montreal in 2022 with the Lightning, and then this past summer with the Oilers, Perry lost all four times.

Therefore, when the raw video emerged of the Oilers’ dressing room, some fans couldn’t help but target Perry and make fun of him for losing again : some even believing he would not be as sad as his teammates with the loss.

The Oilers are considered favourites the win the Stanley Cup in 2025 and, as of now, Perry would be part of the winning roster. He re-signed in Edmonton a one-year, $1.4 million deal, and believes the club is motivated to atone for their crushing Game 7 loss to the Panthers nest season.

While I get that some fans will want to attack Perry and his troubling record, I feel for the dressing room when I saw the video. The Oilers nearly pulled off the impossible this past postseason, after dropping the first three games of the series against Florida. They won three straight games and forced a game seven, winner-take-all against the Panthers. And lost by just one goal…