Oh Canada!.Toronto and Edmonton hope this year will end their decades-long wait to win another Stanley Cup, but only one — or maybe neither of them — will be right..Toronto won 13 cups, the last being in 1967, while Edmonton won cups between 1984 and 1990. However, Toronto just won its first playoff series in 19 years by defeating Tampa Bay, while Edmonton is building on its Western Conference Final appearance in last year’s playoffs..Rod Pedersen, a sports talk show host whose eponymous program airs on Game TV and YouTube, says Toronto has especially earned its dues..“I've just seen this team, this particular group of players get knocked down the past couple of years in the playoffs. And I think you have to lose before you learn how to win,” Pedersen said in an interview with the Western Standard..“This is not groundbreaking thinking. This is the way it goes. In 1982, the LA Kings upset the Edmonton Oilers despite being 48 points behind them in the regular season. That was the Oilers lesson. The Leafs have learned their lessons and I'm happy for them.”.Toronto lost to the Stanley Cup-defending Tampa Bay Lightning in the seventh game of round one last year, only to beat them in six games this year. One thing the Leafs can be happy for is they face the Florida Panthers in round two, not the 65-win Boston Bruins they upset..“Absolutely, because I believe that would have been their second round opponent, and then the Bruins fell victim to the President's Trophy curse. I guess eight straight years the Presidents Cup champ lost in the playoffs.”.Some people think Canadian teams are cursed in general, not having won since the Canadiens did so in 1993. Some blame Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner since 1992..“There's a lot of people that think Gary Bettman is anti-Canadian. And I can't say that he isn't, I don't know. But I'd like to think that the best hockey will play out, regardless. That's what I want. I would love to see a Toronto-Edmonton Stanley Cup final. And between the two, I wouldn't care who won. I'm a Canadian. I spend a lot of time in the States, but it would certainly be appreciated more here. And I think it would make for good television," Pederson said..Pederson is picking Toronto to win in six games and the Oilers to lose in six games to their second round opponent, Las Vegas. He says Toronto’s rare chance at a long playoff run might not be an option in two years..“The best player on the team, Austin Matthews, I think he has one year left on his contract. So you're talking about an NHL MVP there I think he'd be going to Phoenix the second that contract's up. So they're definitely running out of time,” Pederson said..“They have to be thinking in the back of their mind, ‘This could be it.’ And that's a great motivator. The group will by and large probably be together for a long time, but they're going to lose pieces along the way. If they believe in themselves, right now, this is the time to do it.”.Moshe Lander, Canada’s preeminent sports economist and senior lecturer at Concordia University, agrees star players in Edmonton and Toronto are at their peak, so it’s now or never..“I don't know that it's necessarily a function of age, I think it becomes a function of if you don't do it now, do you start looking to reorganize your team? Do you start taking key talent and trading them away for future draft picks and just say, alright, this group of people is not the one to work, so we maybe need to try something else.”.Lander says when it comes to hockey, he is a Leafs-hater, but he must admit “talent looks good for Toronto.” He agrees the team got a break when the Bruins got beat out, just as Edmonton did with Colorado’s loss to the Seattle Kraken..“Same logic, you're getting rid of the defending champions. They weren't the number one team this year, at least in the Western Conference. Edmonton now is the dominant team over in the West. So if not now, when?”.Las Vegas had 51 wins in the regular season, one more than Edmonton, but Edmonton won 17 games after the March 3 trade deadline for the best record in the league. They also had an NHL-record 32.4% power play and were the first team since the 1995-96 Penguins to have three 100-point scorers. Captain Connor McDavid’s 64 goals and 153 points were the most since Mario Lemieux’s 69 goals and 161 points in 1995-96..Lander says many players prefer the easier travel schedules, lower taxes, and nicer weather in the U.S., taking Bettman off the hook for 30 years of futility for Canada’s seven teams..“Bettman doesn't have it in for Canada, he never has,” Lander said.
